We aren't the most "on-the-ball" type of parents when it comes to academic pursuits. We didn't really do flashcards (tried for maybe 2 days and we gave up). We are also not the most consistent bedtime readers. We'll go through phases of reading every night to periods where we hardly read to them. We do believe in loads of unstructured time for the boys to play and thus to learn independence. Most of the time, they'll be playing with their Legos (Kieran) or having some imaginary play (Kiefer) by themselves.
Having said that, we do understand and believe in the importance of reading. I was a reader when I was small. I love Enid Blyton and I'm sure I've read most (if not all,) of her books. Thus with our boys, we do attempt to get them to learn to read.
We've been using Ladybird's Peter and Jane series. As boring as the books are, the repetition in the books really helped the boys to pick up words. We have been taking it slowly and Kieran has just completed Book 5b (I'm not sure what the standard pace is, but I know he's not the fastest reader around). Considering we only really started him on the P&J books last year, he now recognises many words by sight, though he still has a lot of work to do in the area of spelling.
He has gained much confidence in his reading that he was comfortable enough to help Kiefer read his Book 2a. He even helped Kiefer sound out the words. A very big step taken indeed.
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