Chunk That Word

A friend of mine who is preparing to homeschool her son for kindergarten next year has suggested a very good website for reading skills: starfall.com. We have fairly strict limits on screen time around here, but I actually feel pretty good about the time BJ has been spending here. He clearly enjoys it and is learning from it. He can handle the "It's Fun to Read" section with no problems, and he can even manage much of the "I'm Reading" material on his own (how much he's actually comprehending is still something I'm figuring out) -- but in truth he has had fun with every level of the site.

He has been especially interested in some of the phonics elements, which I had not formally taught him but which seem to make a lot of sense to him. He's had lots of fun with the idea of "chunking" words, breaking them up into their parts to better understand them. There's a fun little video that explains it here.

I knew he'd understood the concept when we were driving to the park yesterday. He announced, "Mom! The word hospital has the word "spit" in it!"

Indeed it does.