Phonics, Whole Language, and Charlotte Mason Reading Instruction

June 12, 2018 by Leahbmartin 3 Comments

A post about reading instruction is not what you might expect to see on a Charlotte Mason early years blog. One of my huge motivations for wanting to homeschool in the first place was the sheer joy of teaching my children to read. Sheer joy, you say? Does teaching Charlotte Mason reading lessons sound like something other than joyful and delightful to you? I hope that I can make it easier. This post will explain the different methods that Charlotte Mason used for reading instruction, and describe the modern day equivalents. It also gives a short description of the activities she recommended for reading instruction.

Miss H has started to read on her own. Since my dream is to actually teach her how to read, I’ve jumped in with some lessons when she requests them. A year or two ago, when dreaming ahead to these beautiful moments of reading instruction, I pictured myself purchasing a reading curriculum. One that aligned with Charlotte Mason, of course, but one that was based on what I knew about reading instruction through my Master’s degree work and my teaching experience. Surely Charlotte Mason’s recommendations for reading instruction wouldn’t be enough.

But I was wrong.

After carefully examining Charlotte Mason’s words about reading instruction, I’ve realized that many of her methods align very well with modern reading research. Although modern reading programs go for the quick-fix, Charlotte Mason thought that teaching a child to read should be a slow process. So Miss H and I have been proceeding slowly through the processes that Charlotte Mason recommended in Home Education.

What Style is Charlotte Mason Reading Instruction?

There are two main styles of reading instruction:

Whole language- The whole language approach surrounds the child with print, meaningful stories, and opportunities to write. Children aren’t taught the specific sounds that each letter makes, but are presented with whole words and are expected to make meaning of them gradually. This method was especially popular in the 1980’s. I remember being taught to read this way, and as a young child, it stressed me out when the teacher asked me to read the words in the large book she held up. I told her what was happening in the picture, and she said, “You’re supposed to read the words, not tell about the pictures.” I remember replying, “Oh. I can’t read.”

Besides leaving some kids (me!) utterly confused, experts also worried that at-risk children or those with special needs would be harmed by this approach. And, as you can probably imagine, this approach didn’t make for super great spellers. (Not that spelling is considered important anymore in some circles, anyway!)

The whole language approach started to fade in the mid-2000’s, but bits and pieces of it are still found in schools and text books.

Phonics– A phonics approach teaches phonemes, the distinct sounds in the English language. Meaning is often overlooked in favor of teaching the workings of each letter and letter combination. Children often read nonsense words just to use the phonics patterns they have learned. Some people argue that this approach focus so much on decoding (making meaning of the symbols) that reading comprehension plays second fiddle. Not to mention, this approach can take the joy out of reading for many children since there is so much “drill and kill” involved.

A Balanced Approach

My very first year of teaching, I filled in for three maternity leaves, which means I had to not bomb three interviews in order to be hired. The majority of my year was spent in first grade. I remember sitting in the interview for the first grade position, a nervous, just-out-of-college young lady, my knees jumping up and down and desperately wanting to bite my nails. The principal asked me, “Which do you agree with: a whole language approach or a phonics approach to reading?” Oh! What a tough question! Which one was I supposed to prefer? I remembered learning about whole language in college, but once I started student teaching, it was ALL about the phonics approach. In a meek little voice, I said, “A balanced approach? Balancing phonics and whole language?” The principle boomed, “Exactly!! You have to balance them both!”

And all this to say, my friends, that Charlotte Mason understood the balanced approach long before whole language and phonics even existed. She recommended that children learn their letter sounds as early as the age of two, or when they become interested. She gave recommendations for simple word building to understand phonics patterns (she described word families, sets of rhyming words using the same phonics patterns, long before this was put into a teaching textbook.)

Charlotte Mason Phonics

In order to give you a more picture of what Charlotte Mason reading instruction looks like, I wanted to share the activities that she mentioned. Before formal lessons, Charlotte Mason recommended these phonics “games”-

learning each letter sound, including short and long vowel sounds (Home Education, pages 201-202)
short vowel word families, like cat, sat, mat, etc. (Home Education, pages 202-203)
silent e long vowel word families, such as mate, late, rate, etc. (Home Education, pages 202-203)
word families with final blends. Blends are two letters that work together while still making two sounds, like –ng, –nd, (Home Education, pages 202-203)
word families with final digraphs. A digraph is when two letters make one sound, like –ch, –th, –ph (Home Education, pages 202-203)
words that begin with digraphs, like this, that, and chirp. (Home Education, pages 202-203)

We often hear that there should be no reading lessons until a child is six, but Charlotte Mason made these recommendations before the section in Home Education entitled “First Reading Lessons.” Of the above phonics recommendations, she said:

This is not reading, but it is preparing the ground for reading; words will be no longer unfamiliar, perplexing objects, when the child meets with them in a line of print.” Home Education, page 203

After formal lessons begin, phonics seem to take a backseat to “reading by sight” (which I’ll explain in the next section.) She said:

For the second, and less important, part of our task, the child must know the sounds of the letters, and acquire power to throw given sounds into new combinations.” Home Education, page 216

Substituting initial sounds using their own set of letters. For example, “Change butter to mutter.” or “Change lent to spent.” (Home Education, page 216)
Avoid nonsensical phonics patterns (cle, cla, etc.) but make the words your child learns meaningful. (Home Education, page 216)
Spelling lessons (or, word building lessons) to create words in the same word family (such as coat, moat, etc.) (Home Education, pages 219-220
“Little talks” about words that don’t fit phonics patterns (example- goat and note.) (Home Education, page 219)

Related: How to Choose Living Books

Charlotte Mason Reading By Sight

I did not call this section “whole language” because even though there are similarities to the whole language approach, it isn’t exactly the same. Charlotte Mason called this “reading by sight.” The basic ideas are the same though: present a child with whole, real-life words instead of bits and pieces of words.

“It is far easier for a child to read plum-pudding than to read ‘to, to,’ because ‘plum-pudding’ conveys a far more interesting idea.” Home Education, page 209

With this idea in mind, Charlotte Mason recommended the following activities to help a child “read by sight.”

Learning whole words from a nursery rhyme (10 or 12 at a time)
Arranging the words in order
Arranging the words in a column and reading them (Home Education, page 218)
Search for familiar words in context (word hunt) (Home Education, page 218)
Forms short sentences that are dictated to him (Home Education, page 218)
Forms his own sentences (Home Education, page 218)
Use counters or place savers to represent unknown words. In modern terms, this is the “skip it and move on” strategy, used to build contextual understanding. (Home Education, page 220)

Be Okay With Slow Progress

Charlotte Mason’s guidelines for teaching reading are wonderful and thorough. But they are slow. She said that we should be content to move slowly, and that by the end of the year moving at this pace, a child should now 600 words. I have a friend who said that slowly progressing through a nursery rhyme and then reading through a simple living book like Frog and Toad was the vast majority of reading instruction in her home.

Right now, Miss H and I are working on some phonics patterns as Charlotte Mason recommended before formal lessons. But to prepare, I’ve made some reading printables using the Charlotte Mason processes above. If your child is ready for formal reading lessons, make sure to check them out in the My Little Robins shop. These will save you time and effort, and make the teaching-to-read process a little simpler!

30 Easy Ideas for Early Literacy Development

June 7, 2017 by Leahbmartin 4 Comments

My title undoubtedly makes some people think of an infant reading program where young babies will miraculously be transformed into readers. But that’s not what I want to talk about today. Chances are, you’re encouraging early reading skills every day in your home with your young child. Early literacy refers to preparing children for reading through activities that draw attention to reading and writing opportunities. It shows them the purpose reading and writing plays in our lives. These activities don’t have to be Pinteresty and contrived. Many of them take no prep or materials.

Charlotte Mason moms know that her recommendation was to hold off on formal lessons until a child turns 6. But there is so much we can do to help our children develop a firm foundation of literacy until then. The key determining factor between formal lessons and teaching your child pre-literacy skills informally is that the latter should be play-based.

The Alphabet

Charlotte Mason describes the process of young children learning the alphabet:

The Alphabet.––As for his letters, the child usually teaches himself. He has his box of ivory letters and picks out p for pudding, b for blackbird, h for horse, big and little, and knows them both. But the learning of the alphabet should be made a means of cultivating the child’s observation: he should be made to see what he looks at. Make big B in the air, and let him name it; then let him make round O, and crooked S, and T for Tommy, and you name the letters as the little finger forms them with unsteady strokes in the air. To make the small letters thus from memory is a work of more art, and requires more careful observation on the child’s part. A tray of sand is useful at this stage. The child draws his finger boldly through the sand, and then puts a back to his D; and behold, his first essay in making a straight line and a curve. But the devices for making the learning of the ‘A B C‘ interesting are endless. There is no occasion to hurry the child: let him learn one form at a time, and know it so well that he can pick out the d’s, say, big and little, in a page of large print. Let him say d for duck, dog, doll, thus: d-uck, d-og, prolonging the sound of the initial consonant, and at last sounding d alone, not dee, but d‘, the mere sound of the consonant separated as far as possible from the following vowel.

Let the child alone, and he will learn the alphabet for himself: but few mothers can resist the pleasure of teaching it; and there is no reason why they should, for this kind of learning is no more than play to the child, and if the alphabet be taught to the little student, his appreciation of both form and sound will be cultivated. When should he begin? Whenever his box of letters begins to interest him. The baby of two will often be able to name half a dozen letters; and there is nothing against it so long as the finding and naming of letters is a game to him. But he must not be urged, required to show off, teased to find letters when his heart is set on other play.” Home Education, pages 201-202.

She mentioned:

Writing in the air
Using a sand tray to write letters

But the possibilities are endless!

- Read alphabet books
- Complete alphabet puzzles
- Paint or draw letters
- Make letters out of Play Doh
- Use Wiki-Stix to form letters
- Put a set of pretty magnetic alphabet letters on the refrigerator

This book is quickly becoming one of our favorites! Today we read about a little girl who wanted to visit the stars, so she traveled far and endured cold and fatigue to get there. Such inspirational ideas about perseverance! . . . #preschool #preschoolathome #charlottemasonpreschool #charlottemason #charlottemasonliving #sahm #mythreeyearold #read #bookofvirtues #lovemykids

A post shared by Leah Martin (@mylittlerobins) on Sep 13, 2016 at 9:06am PDT

Vocabulary Development

Vocabulary development is crucial for your child’s future learning skills. He or she will need a broad vocabulary in order to read books in the future. Introducing them to many different experiences that strengthen their vocabulary now will help them

Read fiction and nonfiction books (read more about living books here)
Don’t be afraid to read books that are higher than their vocabulary level
Role play real-life activities, like going to a restaurant or store
Ask your child to describe what they see when they’re playing outside– this also helps with the habit of observation!
Use synonyms for everyday words- make it a game!
Search for items in a picture
Play a board game
Tell your child stories in the car while you’re driving, or have your child tell you a story
Visit somewhere new! Don’t get stuck in a rut- let your child have new experiences that will help them expand their vocabulary
Let your child come up with and articulate a new craft

The Purpose of Reading in Our Lives

By drawing attention to real-life ways that people use reading skills on a daily basis, your child will learn the purpose of the mysterious code they see everywhere.

Visit the library
Post pictures with words in their play space
Read signs while driving, shopping, etc.
Make a grocery list with pictures for your child to use at the store
Cook together by following a recipe
Encourage scribble “writing”
Make a card for someone

Sounds Make Up Language

Experimenting with sounds of words helps your child begin to see the correlation between words, sounds, and letters.

Sing a song
Read nursery rhymes, emphasizing the rhyming words
Play rhyming games, like The Name Game (and use the Name Game Generator if you get stuck. Who thinks of this stuff?!)
Emphasize the first sound of a word (p-p-p-play)
Play games using rhyming, segmenting, and blending

The activities that you use will depend on your child’s age and development. Since these are intended to be play-based, following your child’s lead is a must!

Three Essential Prereading Skills: Rhyming, Segmenting, and Blending

April 6, 2017 by Leahbmartin 2 Comments

I’m in no hurry to teach Miss H how to read (I wrote about it last year, but it still holds true now that she’s four!) Lately, she’s showing some signs of reading readiness and it’s getting me a little giddy. You see, I view getting to teach my daughter to read as a huge privilege!

Even though we won’t be doing formal reading lessons any time soon, there are some really important prereading skills that she needs to know: rhyming, segmenting, and blending. These skills fall into the categories of phonological awareness and phonemic awareness. The skills involve being able to listen to and identify sounds in a word and a word part. They don’t involve any letters, just sounds. Children who have a good grasp of these prereading skills tend to be better readers down the road.

Recently, Miss H started segmenting words on her own. She said, “Mommy! Boat goes with O!” This is what motivated me to get started on segmenting with her. I wanted to be sure to teach her the correct terminology so it didn’t become a hard to break habit. And she loves working with sounds, so I knew we’d both enjoy it!

There are lots of fun ways to experiment with sounds. I don’t think this falls into the “formal lessons” category, although I’m sure you could make these simple activities more elaborate if you wanted to!

This post contains affiliate links. I only suggest products that I use and love! For more information, visit my policies.

Rhyming

Miss H and I have so much fun rhyming together! We do this all the time- in the car, at the table, and on walks. Teaching this skill really takes no preparation, but there is research that says it should be taught directly.

The Real Mother Goose nursery rhymes book- This classic book is so sweet, and the rhyming language makes it a great way to introduce this skill.

Other Rhyming Books- You get decide if you consider these light reading or living books, but rhyming books are really enjoyable for little ones! Here are a few we love-

Rhyming Games from the Florida Center of Reading Research- I loved this resource when I was a public school teacher, and I’m still finding it helpful! The FCRR has simple printable games that teach lots of different reading skills. What I love about them is that you don’t have to use them exactly as suggested, but you can be creative and make it work for you. We love to play memory match games, and this rhyming memory match game one is cute, easy, and free! I truly believe we don’t always need to find the fun and cute activities, but some of these are pretty simple and don’t distract from the actual learning.

Rhyming Games from Reading Rockets– This link has videos and links to rhyming games and activities.

Phoneme Segmenting

This is the stage we are in right now. In this skill, single sounds (phonemes) can be isolated, maybe by asking your child what the first or last sound in a word is, or your child can say each sound in a whole word. Miss H started with saying the middle sound in a word, and then I taught her how to isolate the initial sound. Together, we are working on say all of the sounds, but she needs some support with that skill right now. We are going to take it slowly!

Phoneme Puzzles from the Florida Center of Reading Research–

This link includes a couple of different phoneme segmentation activities, but I love the puzzles! They are pictures broken into as many pieces as there are sounds. For example, egg and cow both have two pieces because they’re broken into two sounds (e-g and c-ow). Fish has three pieces for three sounds (/sh/ counts as one sound even though it’s made of two letters!)

Sound Boxes-

(Officially called Elkonin boxes.) This is a great way to segment sounds! I made boxes with Washi tape on our chalkboard door, and then I segmented a word for Miss H. For every sound she heard, she drew a circle in a box. When she has a little more practice with segmenting, I’ll slowly say a word for her, and she’ll segment it herself, putting circles in each box for each sound. I expected to just do a few words with her, but she LOVED doing this and kept asking for more!

I used a chalkboard because Miss H loves drawing on the chalkboard, but in the past I used boxes that were printed on paper and laminated. Each child put a little Learning Resources Transparent Color Counting Chips, Set of 250 in each square as they heard a sound. You can easily make your own boxes in a program like Microsoft Word, or you can find printables all over the Internet (here’s one!)

With older children, Elkonin boxes can be really helpful to teach spelling, especially when your child tends to write a word without thinking about its individual sounds. For now, in our pre-phonics days, we’ll just stick to sounds.

Today we started to work on segmenting sounds. This is something Miss H started doing on her own, so I wanted to help her along with it. She loved putting a circle in each box for every sound in a word. See my Instastory because I explained that terribly ?

A post shared by Leah (@mylittlerobins) on Apr 5, 2017 at 3:11pm PDT

Other Visuals-

Fingers, beads, and other objects can also be used to notice how many sounds are in each word.

Phoneme Blending

This skills tends to be a little more difficult than the other two. I think it’s really important to work on in before phonics are introduced because once a child understands all the letter sounds, they won’t be able to read until they blend the letters together. The phonemic awareness version of this skill doesn’t involve any letters, which makes it a great prereading skill. You’ll probably find cute activities online for blending, but they’ll most likely include letters. The best way to teach the prereading skill of blending is through a good old fashioned game out loud.

Blending Out Loud–

Blending is the opposite of segmenting. Instead of giving the word and asking for the sounds, you give the sounds and ask for the word. For example, “What word do the sounds /d/ /o/ /g/ make?”

Blending on the Arm-

Many reading teachers have a child use their arms to blend a word. This works best for words with three sounds, but could also be adapted to words with four or more sounds. With the first sound, have your child touch their shoulder. They touch the inside of their elbow for the second sound, and their wrist for the final sound. Then, they sweep down from their shoulder to their wrist to say the word.

From the Florida Center for Reading Research-

This link has one blending activity mixed in with other phonemic awareness activities (including Elkonin boxes). I don’t think we’ll use the activity because I think the overall concept is simple (even though it will take lots of practice!) and I don’t want to complicate it.

A Little Extra Explanation

This article from the University of Oregon clearly explains phonemic awareness.

This is a list of phonemes that might be helpful when using Elkonin boxes. Some sources I found said that there are 41 phonemes, but this list has 44. Bonus! 🙂

Also from the University of Oregon, this article explains different phonemic awareness skills that you might want to work on down the road.

Reading to Young Children: Where Charlotte Mason and Research Disagree

March 7, 2017 by Leahbmartin 10 Comments

On a scale of 1-10, how addicted are you to children’s books? How much do you love reading with your kids?

Even though I’m on a mission to declutter, books are something that I keep buying. I love sharing new books with my little ones, and some of our most precious memories involve being curled up together, reading a story.

So, as I’ve been on this journey to learn more about using the Charlotte Mason philosophy in the early years, it has been a little disheartening to read that she didn’t think young children should be put in front of books.

One thing I find amazing about the Charlotte Mason philosophy is that it lines up with so much of today’s modern research about education and raising children.

This is not one of those areas.

Charlotte Mason’s views on books in early childhood don’t line up with modern-day research.

Reading to young children is something that is very important this day and age. But Charlotte Mason disagreed. This is how I reconcile those two different viewpoints.

Charlotte Mason’s Views on Books

I can think of at least three instances where Charlotte Mason spoke against books in the early years:

Away with books, and ‘reading to’– for the first five or six years of life. The endless succession of story-books, scenes, shifting like a panorama before the child’s vision, is a mental and moral dissipation; he gets nothing to grow upon, or is allowed no leisure to digest what he gets. It is contrary to nature.” Formation of Character, page 216

He has a thousand questions to ask, he wants to know about everything; he has, in fact, an inordinate appetite for knowledge. We soon cure all that: we occupy him with books instead of things; we evoke other desires in place of the desire to know; and we succeed in bringing up the unobservant man (and more unobservant woman) who discerns no difference between an elm, a poplar and a lime tree, and misses very much of the joy of living. Parents and Children

It’s Nature’s lore, and the children take to it like ducks in the water; the first six or seven years of their lives are spent out of doors– in possible weather– learning this sort of thing, instead of pottering over picture-books and A B C.” Formation of Character, page 166

Instead of reading lots of books in the early years, Charlotte Mason said that children should spend their time outside observing, using all of their senses to take in the world around them. She viewed reading lots of picture books as unrelated tidbits of scenes that don’t give a child a solid foundation to grow upon.

However, she did recommend that parents have some fairy tales memorized so that they can share them with their children. So, her problem wasn’t with stories, but with the books themselves.

What Research Says about Reading To Young Children

My sister-in-law took her newborn baby to the doctor last year for his one-week visit. She and my mother-in-law were a little surprised when the doctor asked them if they had been reading to him every day. Here was a new family, just trying to get adjusted to life with a precious newborn, and they had been so swamped that they hadn’t read to him yet (understandably!)

In 2014, the AAP wrote a policy advising pediatricians to promote reading to their infants during their very first preventative visits.

According to the AAP, reading aloud to young children on a regular basis

Strengthens the relationship between a parent and child
Builds language
Develops literacy
Builds social-emotional skills
Promotes “school” readiness
Cultivates an interest in reading

Pediatricians recommend reading to your babies starting at day one.

These findings aren’t based in a single random survey with sketchy origins. The results have been repeated over and over again, even in different countries (here’s an article from Australia).

What’s A Mama To Do?

Here’s my plan: I’m going to keep reading. Every chance I get, I’m going to snuggle up to my two little sweet hearts and share stories with them. Charlotte Mason loved research (about the brain, at least- I’m not sure how much education research was out there at the time!) and she loved studying other great thinkers. I am sure that if this research had existed during her day, she would have definitely considered it while writing her philosophy. We have to use our common sense and our instincts when we’re educating our child, and my instincts tell me that reading with my little ones is important. Very important.

I’ll still make time for the other things that Charlotte Mason said are important during the early years, like playing outdoors and observing objects. But I think a modern Charlotte Mason education also has room for plenty of beautiful, well-written books.

Book Resources

I have some roundups and other resources to help you pick high-quality books for your little ones.

Fall Books

Books about snow

What is twaddle?

Follow my Instagram feed for the occasional amazing thrift store book find 🙂

Christmas Bells by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow: Charlotte Mason Lesson

December 4, 2016 by Leahbmartin Leave a Comment

Sample Charlotte Mason lesson using Christmas Bells poem from Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.

I wanted to wrap up my week talking about teaching a Charlotte Mason lesson with an example. This is a lesson that is great for this time of year, especially if you are studying Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, or poets from the Victorian era. Make sure to read my other two posts from this week (How to Plan and Effective Charlotte Mason Lesson, and How to Teach a Charlotte Mason Lesson.)

Vocabulary

Belfries– Bell towers, usually a part of a church

Christendom– Worldwide community of Christians

Accursed– Under a curse

Forlorn– Sad and abandoned

Pealed- To ring loudly

Some Possible Background Information

Poet Information

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow wrote this during the Civil War. His wife had recently passed away in a tragic fire. His son had joined the war without his blessing, and was seriously injured. Longfellow sat down and penned this poem on a sad Christmas Day. You can read more about this on Wikipedia.

If you share the information about the events behind this poem, you might want to share a map similar to this one that shows where the battles of the Civil War were fought. This would illustrate the scope of the terrible war that swept America, and also integrate geography.

Poetic Elements

This website explains some of the poetic elements in this poem. If this is something you’re hoping to teach your child in this lesson, make sure to mention them!

Reading the Poem

Poetry is meant to be read aloud. I usually read the whole poem once, and then the students read it stanza by stanza. I chose to stop to tell back and talk about each stanza before moving on, but older students could probably read the whole poem before stopping. (I like these tips for reading poetry outloud.)

Christmas Bells

I heard the bells on Christmas Day

Their old, familiar carols play,

and wild and sweet

The words repeat