Practicing Letters

Clara has been working on learning how to write her letters. She has been able to write her name pretty legibly for some time now, but still needs lots of practice with many of the other letters. In addition she's been showing some interest in learning how to read, so when I came across the complete Hooked on Phonics set at Ross for $40 I seized it. She's made it through the first book which simply had her practice drawing lines (vertical, horizontal, diagonal and curved) and circles.

She is now on the second book where they put the lines together to start making letters.

Today after learning about ladybugs we decided to practice letters with sidewalk chalk, since we hadn't done the book today. I apologize that these pics will be hard to see even once you've clicked on them to enlarge, but am just so proud I wanted to share.

I wrote the alphabet (upper and lowercase) out in blue chalk, and then she went back through with pink and traced over my letters and then drew them on her own below each of mine. It worked really well, because when she traced my letters perfectly the pink and blue chalk made purple -- which made her try harder to stay on my lines.

He first row (Aa-Jj) was best (when she was still very excited about this new way to practice)

She did all the letters, and pretty well I might add. My goal is to have her reading by the time Chris returns in 6 months. If anyone has any tips, I'd love to hear them.