Whenever Seven and I have a lunch date, we always bring a little travel game with us. Last week it was Gobblet. Yesterday, we brought out Bananagrams because I'm still a Bananagrams addict. Nearly a year has passed since Seven and started playing the game, and it's been neat to watch his spelling skills improve. More so, I love the words he uses in a round. Back in January, he would get frustrated because he couldn't think of words fast enough. Now? He is a speedy Bananagamer.
Q. has been showing signs of wanting to learn how to read and write. He asks for words to be written out ("Big and lowercase, Mama" and sounds to be repeated. He grabs a pencil and paper and attempts to scribe words. Being able to read and write is so empowering at all ages. But when little kids realize they can read a book and write a word, it's pure magic. And I am nothing short of ecstatic at the chance to help open up that world to Q.
Monday afternoon, I found Q. playing with the Bananagram tiles, trying to spell out small words: CAT, STOP, FUN. But he'd stuck because he couldn't think of words to try to spell.
To help him along, I wrote words on index cards. All of the very simple three- and four-letter "at," "it," "op," and "ap" words. He was left to search for the letters and sound them out while he created the words.
Scrabble tiles will also work, natch. But I love the Bananagrams tiles because they fit in that nice, small pouch.
Any fun tips/tools you used to help your kids learn to read?
