Day 767 of 1000
The sound quality of this video is not so great, but it shows Kelly recite The Owl and the Pussycat when she was a little past four years old . It was not too long after this that she learned how to read for herself. We read this book to Kelly and Christian many, many times. We did not know she had it memorized until she just recited it to us one day. She received lots of accolades for this memorization, mostly from grandparents, aunts, uncles, and older friends–other kids did not care so much. This happened often enough, Christian wanted to get in on the action, so we worked with him on memorization, too. We mostly memorized Bible verses, but there was some poetry and other things thrown in there, too.
The next thing that happened is Kelly started associating the words she had memorized with the appearance of the words in the books. At about the same time, we bought a computer game program called Reader Rabbit. Kelly loved to sit on my lap and play that game. We did it, on a schedule, for about ten minutes per day. Before we knew it she was reading. At first, she only read aloud, but one day it dawned on her that she did not have to say the words to read the book and proclaimed that loudly to Lorena, “I am reading in my head!” This all started with memorization. We think it is a wonderful tool for the entire learning process, not just reading.
We believe this little event was what put us on the road to active participation in the education of our children and eventually to homeschool. The kids memorized longer and longer passages throughout their homeschool education. One of the key goals we meet toward the end was the Sermon on the Mount, Matthew 5, 6, and 7 in the Bible. I had told them they could get their drivers license they completed this memorization. I never really held them to that, but both of them were able to quote it all.
Now that the kids are in college, we feel somewhat of a void. We get great joy out of seeing other people teach their kids to memorize and read. What we did not know at the time is that practiced memorization gives kids a “super-power” through college and even on into their work life.
Update: One of our homeschool friends left a comment. I went over to her website and found they have big time trumped us with an entire alphabet of memorized, little kid poetry. Pretty awesome. Check it out here. Click on the individual letters to access the videos of the poetry.
Kelly is so cute, and clearly had a great sense of fashion at 4! We have a huge thing for memorization, too! In fact, that’s one of the cornerstones of the curriculum I wrote (and almost have ready for sale!) Right now one thing have on the website is videos of “Thomas” & “Annie” reciting poetry, so that as my beta testers work through the curriculum, they can use it as a memorization tool weekly for their children.
We started memorizing with “Annie” because she loved to talk and learned to talk at an early age, and poetry gave her a meaningful and rewarding way to interact with adults! Because I was having 2 kids memorize the same poetry, I wasn’t sure how well it was working, or if they were just feeding off of each other, so one week I had “Thomas” & “Annie” each memorize a different poem. You’ve probably already guessed that they memorized their poem and each other’s too!
That is awesome Audrey. I have been watching your site. You have VERY cute kids. When you have your stuff ready to go, let me know and I will give it a plug!