reading lessons Archives - My Little Robins

This post contains affiliate links. If you’re curious as to how these work, you can read more about them in my policies.

The first, and probably most exciting thing when beginning formal lessons, is, for many, reading instruction. In Home Education, as Charlotte Mason lays out her approach to education for 0-9, she also gives a complete, sufficient method for reading. I have written about this approach before, and how it compares to two modern approaches, phonics and whole language, but today I’ll focus solely on the method that she suggested for a child of six or seven. Since many Charlotte Mason families I know teach the alphabet and some beginning phonics through play during the early years, I’ll skip right to the first reading lesson and give you lots of resources for teaching your child.

In this series of posts, I’m digging into Charlotte Mason’s volume, Home Education, to explain how she urged us to teach each subject. It looks much different than many other Charlotte Mason curricula, but I trust that this volume was Holy Spirit inspired, and this curriculum will suffice for my six-year-old. This felt like a lot to me, especially in a season where I will teach a six-year-old and have two very young children to tend to. I’ve put together a booklist that we’re using, which you can download.

My well-loved copy of Home Education.

Reading Words

"But example is better than precept, and more convincing than the soundest reasoning. This is the sort of reading lesson we have in view. Tommy knows his letters by name and sound, but he knows no more. To-day he is to be launched into the very middle of reading, without any 'steps' at all, because reading is neither an art nor a science, and has, probably, no beginning." Home Education, page 217

Charlotte Mason beautifully described the process, not steps, of reading lessons using a nursery rhyme that had been cut up word by word. You can do this easily with a computer and a printer. Just type out a rhyme, print it, and cut out each word. I've done this for you, as well as wrote out specific lessons, in my reading printable packs.

An interesting word from the poem is introduced, and the child's interest is sparked. The word is familiar and he wants to know more about it. The parent then instructs the child to write out the word with his set of letters (I prefer wooden letters!) and then identify the word from the little cut-up rhyme. This is repeated with a clause until the child knows several words, sometimes over the course of a few lessons.

Instead of just identifying and building each word, the child is encouraged to really keep the picture in his mind. Allow him some time to concentrate on the shapes and order of the letters.

Read Home Education, pages 214-218

Reading Sentences

Using the same words from the reading lesson, your child can rearrange them into new sentences. Charlotte Mason used the example:

I like little *kitty,

Her coat is so warm.

The child starts by putting a sentence together, finding one word at a time as it is told to him.

I like little kitty.

Now he can read a sentence! Then, he can make different sentences based on the words he has recently learned-

Warm little kitty.

I like her coat.

Kitty is little.

*I used a modern word instead of the original.

The words can also be arranged in columns, so your child can practice reading them at random.

Read Home Education, pages 218-219

Word Building Lesson

Now that the child can read words as a whole, he can experiment with the smaller sounds. Today, this is often called word building. Using the wooden letters, he can spell a word in the rhyme, such as coat.

By changing the first letter, he can make several other words.

Moat

Boat

Float

Read Home Education, pages 219-220

Rhyming Words

After learning so many new words, your child actually knows more than he thinks. On a chalk board or white board, he can write rhyming words that he knows.

Little

Brittle

Spittle

Reading for Older Children

Once your child has learned how to read, he or she should have practice reading aloud.

"He should have practice, too, in reading aloud, for the most part, in the books he is using for his term's work. These should include a good deal of poetry, to accustom him to the delicate rendering of shades of meaning, and especially to make him aware that words are beautiful in themselves, that they are a source of pleasure, and are worthy of our honour; and that a beautiful word deserves to be beautifully said, with a certain roundness of tone and precision of utterance." Home Education

Therefore, the selection of their first lesson-books is a matter of grave importance, because it rests with these to give children that knowledge is supremely attractive and that reading is delightful. Once the habit of reading his lesson-book with delight is set up in a child, his education is--not completed, but-- ensured, he will go on for himself in spite of the obstructions which school too commonly throws in his way." Home Education, page 229

My biggest surprise while creating this curriculum for my daughter is the usage of poetry for reading practice. I previously viewed poetry as a completely isolated subject, but I appreciated that it could also be used to help my new reader grow.

Home Education Curriculum: Reading

All that to say, these are the things I took into consideration when planning a curriculum based solely off of Home Education. Miss H and I have already addressed those first reading lessons, but this is what he did, and will continue to do, for reading.

First Reading Lessons:

Twinkle Twinkle Little Star lesson

Donkey, Donkey lesson

Little Robin Redbreast lesson

Continuing Reading Lessons:

Reading Literature, The Primer by Harriette Taylor Treadwell

Reading Literature, The First Reader by Hariette Taylor Treadwell

Frog and Toad by Arnold Lobe

Little Bear by Else Holmlund Minarik

Little Pear by Eleanor Frances Latimore

Favorite Poems Old and New: Selected for Boys and Girls by Helen Farris

Additional Poetry for Practice:

A Child's Garden of Verses

When We Were Very Young by AA Milne

When We Were Six by AA Milne

I'm thankful that you're joining me as I share our Charlotte Mason curriculum!

The process of a Charlotte Mason reading lesson is pretty simple to follow. I've set out the process here for you, so you can create your own reading lessons, or to simplify, you can pick up my reading printable packs.

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!

Home Education: Reading Lessons and Resources