Our newest reader!!!!

Yep this bundle of spunk and energy has joined our family in reading at the young age of 4.5!!!! It has been a great thrill in being the one who has lead each of my children down the path of literacy. I hesitate to say I taught them how to read because it seems like something they each figured out in their own timing; I just gave them the tools to achieve it!!!!!

Looking back I always chuckle because I was such a wreck when it came time to teach LJ how to read. And guess what I didn't teach him, I stressed him and myself out. It wasn't until I stepped back and let him process all the information I had given him was he able to relax, breath and start to read. So when LJ came along, I taught him the ABC song and had no interest in doing any formal lessons until I caught him sitting in front of our ABC chart pointing and singing the ABC song. So the most formal thing I did with him was assign each letter a verse and printed out a color sheet for each. CJ had the most formal introduction to letters this year through our homeschool group ECHO. And for the last several weeks she has been begging to read. So I popped out our Bob Books and had her start sounding out the letters and wouldn't you know it she put the sounds together!!!!! Even teaching the kids their alphabet was different. LJ and I did a dinosaur study. JJ taught himself by sitting in front of a chart, singing the ABC song until he connected each letter and CJ learned with print offs.

But teaching my children goes beyond the letters and the numbers, it reaches deep down within in them. It's covering them in prayer and asking God's counsel on who H-E wants them to be and how I can help train them up in the way H-E would have them go!!!! The world teaches us we can be whatever we want to be, but I want my children to seek out what God wants them to be!!!! It means helping them, from their earliest years, to yield to God and not their flesh. And that is why we chose the International Children's Bible as one of the first bibles they get!!!! We start off with reading it to them and then as they show ability we have them read it to us aloud. This may sound crazy but I see their vocabulary and reading comprehension soar through  the roof after they begin reading their bibles. It's like seeing God's Word in action:

Matthew 6:33 (ICB) The thing you should want most is God's kingdom and doing what God wants. Then all these other things you need will be given to you. 


Matthew 6:33 (NIV) But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.


Matthew 6:33 (KJV) But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you.


and how thankful I am that I don't have to do this perfectly!!!! After all it is through our worst that God does his best!!!!!! Philippians 1:5-7