Motherly Notes Methods – Nurture Love Educate

This isn’t a new trick. This is actually a very traditional type of teaching. When I first taught my older daughter to read, I used these labels around the house with English words when they were younger. I’m now doing it with Chinese. We would always sound them out and point to the object the card is stuck to. My daughters loved that the words represent a thing. Even before they could talk, they would point to the word to tell me what they want. When they started speaking, they would point to things they wanted on the menu and although pronounced it in baby talk, it was a true testament that my baby has learned out to read before the age of 2 without pulling teeth at home.

On my quest to continue this journey with the Chinese language, we’ve started to use these labels again! It’s quite simple and fun for you and your children to do on a rainy day or when you want to kill about 2 hours on the weekend.

Buy some white labels from an office supply store or like Target. Use colored markers or pens or whatever you like. Write the words on the sticker and start the hunt to paste them everywhere around the house with your child! I think this is even more meaningful with preschool age children now because they can talk and you can say, “This says microwave, let’s go tape it on the microwave!” You’ll be surprised how much they’ll love this game.

Since my five year old actually writes, she will tape stuff on my bed, in the shower, on the floor and although we have stickers flying everywhere around the house, I ended up with two children who now loves reading and is empowered by the fact that they can read my text messages and google hangout chats. The worst part is I frequently step on labels and stickers around the house (yack) and I can no longer leave my chat windows open, LOL…