LisaTX wrote:
So, if I were to put Xavier into "school" this year, he wouldn't even be able to get into pre-k. He turns 4 in October and the cutoff is Sept 1st. So, he will technically have another year of pre-school and then next year when he turns 5, he'll be pre-k, and he would be starting kindergarten at almost 6 yrs old.
I think this is a good thing for him, given his speech issues and immaturity. I still struggle with knowing what to do with him. He's been watching the Leapfrog Letter Factory video over and over for several months and he loves it. We've also been doing preschool on the Easy Peasy website, which includes lots of Starfall and letter sounds. He loves to sing the ABC song and some of the other ABC songs he hears online. But he won't answer me if I ask him what sound a letter makes and I don't know if it's because he doesn't want to, or he doesn't know it. He also won't name the letters. It feels like he's just enjoying all this, but not really grasping it?
But he has come a long way in his speech. Just a few months ago, we were excited that he could say the word "flower" and now, he rambles on in sentences and we can understand most of it. He is even a little jokester and makes us laugh at the things he says. A few months ago, he couldn't sing any of the alphabet song, now he can sing along to the whole thing. He even tells us his feelings, "I so sad!" So, he has come so far.
We got him the "Meet the Phonics" videos, which we haven't started yet, but we are about to. We also got some sandpaper letter/number cards and "My First School Book" from HWT, along with the wooden pieces to build capital letters with. I wanted him to start with hands on stuff and I feel like we may need to do that for awhile, before starting the workbook, but I'm not sure. I guess I'll start with the phonics videos, have him trace the sandpaper letters, and continue to do Easy Peasy. Then move on to the workbook when I feel like he's ready?
I also got a book that has phonemic awareness activities, but I'm afraid to even start that. Even though his speech is doing so much better, it's still difficult to talk with him about abstract things, like syllables and rhyming. How do I ask him if something rhymes? How do I even explain rhyming to him and how do I know if he understands what I'm saying, when his speech isn't quite there yet? And there's also the attention difficulties. Sitting down with him to do some of these activities, is not going to go over very well. Sometimes he can't even sit for one minute to color a picture! I'm looking into phonemic awareness activities that involve lots of movement.
Anyways, all of this is why I'm glad his birthday is in Oct, which puts him "behind", so there is extra time to enforce these things. I feel like he would do better with someone who knows what they're doing.
As far as attention span goes, what really worked for my son was to give him a lot of exercise first thing in the morning. A half hour of jumping on the trampoline or riding his bike, something to really get his heart pumping. Once he was finished, we would eat breakfast and sit down for school work.