I was wondering if anyone has any suggestions about how to teach a young ( 5 year old) his letter sounds. I have tried using clay to make the letters, using sandpaper letters(Montessori syle) writing,etc. Still, after nearly 4 months of brief daily sessions he can only remember about 4 names consistently. Incidentally, he has much more difficulty remembering letter sounds than names. Also, although he has a poor auditory memory, when he hears any combination of letter/vowel names he can say the answer automatically.
I live in a foreign country, and there are no reading clinics available; I have to work with him on my on. ANY suggestions would be greatly appreciated.
Go to amazon.com and order Reading Reflex by Carmen McGuiness. That is all you need to teach the child at this age to read. If you can find a small white board in your country and dry erase markers it makes the mapping part much more fun for the child. I might also suggest buying the manipulatives that go with Reading Reflex. Go to readamerica.net.
The manipulatives are for teaching the basic code which is where you will begin. You can also make your own letters.
You will begin with teaching the child to segment and in this first lesson the child will also begin to match sound to symbol. A flawless program that adapts to each child as needed. The pace is set by the child.
A small hint: when you are teaching a young child to segment draw three lines on the white board. Hide the letters of the word. Say the word slowly running your fingers under the 3 lines. Example: fat. Say to the child, “listen as I say the word fat and tell me the sound you hear right here(point to the first line).” Be sure you point to the first line so the child knows where to listen. Repeat this for all 3 sounds in the word. Then lay out the sound pictures(letters) for the word ‘fat’ in random order. Now repeat the process but this time after the child gives the sound have him find the letter that matches the sound. If he doens’t know the letter you then point to it and tell him. After he does this he then ‘maps’ or writes the letters under each letter saying the sounds again.
all of this in the book I suggested