Words--Everywhere!

Today was fruitful. We're working on teaching our 3 year old how to read. Now, I know that some experts say that you shouldn't push the children, but I don't see how introducing a child to the literary world is pushing anything. My oldest was reading by the age of three, with simple lessons given at a young age.
For example, just as I would teach my toddlers that cows say MOO, and birds CHEEP, or TWEET or whatever you want to call it, I tell them the sound of each letter. We accomplished this with alphabet books, where we'd say, "Look! An 'A'! 'A' says aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa. Can you say aaaaaaaaaaaa?"

Once the oldest child was proficient at the basic sound of each letter, we'd show him short words, and explain them: "Look, this says B-A-T. Remember each letter's sound? Can you say them slow?"
"bbbbbbbb-aaaaaaaaaa-ttttttttt"
"Good! Let's say it faster."
"baaaattt"
"You just read 'bat'! Wonderful job!"

Once we did that, he ran off and started sounding everything out he could. The other day, he was reading the installation instructions for a new bed out loud to my father as my father worked. Did I mention he's just now five?

So, we are starting with our second oldest. It doesn't have to be hard, really, or planned. The kids were pretending they were birds, using pillows for nests (so sweet!), keeping their eggs warm. Imaginary baby birds kept hatching and running all over my house. Because I couldn't see them, I had to be very careful where I sat. Crushing one's baby bird could lead to tears. Imaginations can be very vivid at this age! It just so happened (really, purely coincidence) that there was a chalkboard right by where they were playing. So, I walked over with a piece of chalk and said, "You are birds. What letter does bird start with?" Of course, the oldest will answer, but I promise that it rubs off on the second. "A 'B'!" he says. And what does the three year old say? "Let me go find the B!" (We have the alphabet printed across the top of our chalk board). She found it, I wrote it down and said, "What would come next if we wanted to spell bird?"
The oldest pipes up, "R!" Which tells me that although decoding is a strong suit for him, spelling is not, so we'll work on that.
I then write all of BIRD on the chalk board, and we talk about birds laying eggs, hatching, we tweet and use magic bird powder to turn me and the baby into birds as well. I also throw in there why we need an "I" before the "R".
Just simple, short lessons. But they work, and they stick much longer than lesson-a-thons do.