Reading Program

Glenn Doman Reading Method

Teaching my boys to read early(Wes as a preschooler and Zakari as a baby)has been one of the highlights in my parenting career. Glenn Doman called mothers who used the Doman Method “professional mothers”. In a world that undervalues mothers, especially stay at home moms, this is very empowering.

My First Early Reader

When Wesley was a baby I stayed home with him for my one year maternity leave, but a week before he turned one I had to take him to daycare so I could return to work. As a single mom, staying at home full time was not a viable option for our little family of two.

I refused to let this get in the way. You can read more about my story teaching Wesley to read in the post How to Teach your Baby to Read on a budget. 6 Helpful Tips.

My Second Child

My approach to early learning was very different with my second born. With Wesley, I only found out about this method when he was just about 2 years old. Now with Zakari, from the moment I fell pregnant with him I started planning.

Your Baby Can Read. So Can Your Toddler, Preschooler…

If teaching your young child to read is something you are interested in doing, I highly recommend reading How To Teach Your Baby To Read.

Be forewarned this book is often overwhelming for parents. Please do not allow the amounts of materials they suggest you make scare you off. Just do what you can. 

I know how it felt when I sat down the first time to make my child flash cards. After the basic words like Mommy, suddenly I couldn’t seem to remember any words in my native language. My mind was racing, “If I’m struggling with this how am I suppose to create homemade books.”

“But I’m not a writer!” I thought.

Don’t worry, you don’t have to be. From my experience, you just need to be able to use Google search engine and a Word Processing program(I use Google Drive because it’s free).

Making Word Card Bits

At first when your creating word card bits for your child the words will likely come easy to you. Mommy, Daddy, brother, sister, cookie, etc. But over time it becomes more and more difficult.

Some sites that I have used to help me beat “writer’s block” have been:

www.flocabulary.com

100 Words Middle Schoolers Should Know

Cambridge English: Preliminary Vocabulary List

Animal Vocabulary Words

Making Couples and phrases:

 

Then came the couplets and phrases. Oddly I suffered major writer’s block with this. But go through the words your child has already learned and start pairing them up for couplets. By this point, you should have quite a few words in the retired pile. It’s time to start putting them back to use.

Don’t be afraid to make the combos funny like”

grumpy daddy

rubber noodles

chocolate bugs

As for phrases, I looked up poetry, took clips of sentences from fact books, and of course combined words from the retired list.

Making Sentence Bits

When it comes to creating sentences for your child to read, I suggest keeping it simple. Start off with sentences using words in your child’s retired list. Just like phrases, kids appreciate some silly sentences mixed in there.

Look online for random facts about things that interest your child. Teach any words your child isn’t familiar with, and then add them into sentences. Eventually, you will find that you can teach new words in sentences and your child will pick them up just fine. But at first, keep it simple. 

Do not worry about teaching words like a, an, am, can, it was, etc… Your child will pick these up naturally.

Making Homemade Books the Easy Way

 

Homemade book intimidated me when we first started the program. Especially when we saw how fast Zakari was going through them. However, I found a few quick and easy ways to pump out homemade books.

 

 

4 Tips for Creating Homemade Books

1. I find books they already love, and using voice to text on my phone or computer, I summarized it. If the story was on the long side I would make a homemade book based on only part of the story. Make sure that you edit your work, voice to text is not always accurate. But for me, it is still easier to correct the text than to type up the whole thing.
2. You can also lookup children’s encyclopedias online, copy the information into the work processor, and blow it up for your child. Now you must be careful that you do not share these or publish them on a blog as your own work. It is my understanding as educators, we can take information and make it most accessible for our children to read. Our kiddos cannot easily see the print on the computer screen, nor is the screen the best way to teach them. But we want to respect copyright laws and not share these files. They are for personal use only.
3. You can take photos of your child on an outing or doing an activity and narrate the photos. Creating homemade books all about them! These may become some great keepsakes that your child keeps coming back to even after the book is long retired.
4. Find the lyrics to some of your child’s favorite songs and turn those into a homemade book.

Homemade Doman Inspired Books Completed:

Last year I created tons of homemade books for my son. Below you will find a list of the titles of our homemade books. I’m sharing this with you to get ideas for your own child. It is also good for you the see that you can use homemade books to teach your child about any subject you want.

1. Super Why Fairy Tale Friends
2. Why Onions Make You Cry
3. The Luna Moth
4. The Sloth
5. Volcanoes
6. Antarctica
7. How Orcas Hunt
8. What Makes a Year?
9. Facts About Winter
10. September in Canada
11. The Robin
12. Facts About Snow
13. Things You Can Do In The Snow
14. All About Manitoba
15. All About Valentine’s Day
16. What Happens During Spring
17. Canada
18. All About Winnipeg
19. Canada’s Flag
20. All About April Fools Day
21. General Rules for Picking Kite Flying Days
22. The Red Fox
23. All About The Forks
24. All About Wind
25. Autumn in Canada
26. All About Rain
27. October in Canada
28. The Groundhog
29. Canada’s Symbols
30. Thanksgiving in Canada
31. The Beaver
32. Cricket
33. Oak Hammock Marsh
34. Grand Beach
35. The Black-Capped Chickadee
36. All About the Prairie Crocus
37. Canada’s Capital City
38. Canada’s Prime Minister
39. The Canada Goose
40. The Chipmunk
41. The Cardinal
42. Canadian Coins
43. The CN Tower
44. The Raccoon
45. Canada’s Wonderland
46. Green Gables
47. Halloween in Canada
48. November in Canada
49. Good Night, Bear
50. Great Gray Owl
51. The Toronto Zoo
52. Remembrance Day in Canada
53. Facts About Penguins
54. Banff National Park
55. Royal Canadian Mounted Police
56. All About Dogs
57. Antarctic Seals
58. Justin Bieber
59. Chris Hadfield
60. Robert Munsch
61. Alisha J. Newton
62. Confederation Bridge
63. Michael J Fox
64. Season in India
65. Fun Facts About Sphynx
66. Black Creek Pioneer Village
67. December in Canada
68. A Guinea Pig
69. Bengals
70. Cloud Song
71. Peggy’s Cove Lighthouse
72. Devon Rex
73. Ants
74. What is Family?
75. Growing Pineapples
76. Parts of a Banana
77. Camouflage
78. What is Farming?
79. Growing Bananas
80. Air
81. What is a Carrot?
82. What are Mushrooms?
83. Parts of a Pineapple
84. Fruits & Veggies: What’s the Difference?
85. Christmas in Canada
86. Winter in Canada
87. What is an Orange?
88. All About Lemons
89. Alberta
90. Lungs
91. Spring in Canada
92. Easter in Canada
93. Groundhog Day in Canada
94. American History
95. January in Canada
96. February in Canada
97. Valentine’s Day in Canada
98. April in Canada

If you are already on a Doman program,  with Doman International, what topics do you teach your child using homemade books? Leave them in the comments below. I’m always looking for new ideas!

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