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Merriam Webster’s Ninth New Collegiate Dictionary
defines phonics as “the science of sound or a meth-
od of teaching beginners to read and pronounce
words by learning the phonetic value of letters.” As public and
private schools experiment with various methods of teaching
reading, public debate has increased. This is one mom’s solu-
tion to help her struggling son, using aardvarks and zucchinis.
“Our second-grader couldn’t read. He struggled every day at
school. His teacher sent home worksheets every night, which
we faithfully worked on. He just couldn’t sound out the words,”
Joan Hentschel explains. “You know that comfortable feeling
of reading together snuggled under a blanket on the couch?
We weren’t having that experience.”
Hentschel was frustrated with the school for using what
she called “invented spelling’”which is when the child decides
how to spell a word on his or her own. Nothing was marked
as incorrect by the teacher. Of course, many of those invented
spellings didn’t match properly spelled words in a book, so her
son couldn’t enjoy reading. He was constantly asking how to
pronounce words. He was frustrated and, more importantly,
she was fearful he would struggle with learning his entire life.
When her second son was entering kindergarten, Hentschel
debated quitting work to homeschool, but, at the time, her
income was necessary for their family, so she began thinking
about how she could help her son skip some of the frustra-
tions her older son experienced.
“I remember my first-grade teacher had an array of words
mounted on the walls around the classroom. I was enthralled.
I sat at my desk and sounded out every word. I remember feel-
ing so happy that I could read the word lake. The ’A’ had a line
over it for the long ‘A’ sound,” Hentschel explained. “I knew I
could tutor the boys in phonics using the similar methods.”
Understanding her children’s attention spans, Hentschel de-
veloped a 15-minute lesson goal for each evening to last for
20 days. “A friend who home-educated his children loaned me
a book to browse for some ideas. I wanted to boost his knowl-
edge, to give him confidence to continue learning. I found a
white board, purchased some colorful markers and began. I
wrote 12 words on the whiteboard to study the first evening.”
Why 12 words?
Hentschel chuckled, “12 words were all that would fit on the
whiteboard.”
“I had creative freedom to teach just enough phonics to do
what I call ‘jump start’ reading. I wrote ‘ouch’ on the board and
linked it with sun ray symbol. So, when the boys would see
the sun ray symbol over a letter set they would remember it
meant the ’ouch’ sound each time they saw it.”
Hentschel choose the short a sound to begin this process. F
– B – P – T - H were the letters in the first lesson. She gradually
increased the sounds presented for 20 days. Mixing those let-
ters, she would list 12 words on the whiteboard: “hat, tap, cap,
cat, sat, sap, bat, and tab for example. We would repeat a bit
from the day before, and build upon the sounds. Then I wrote
a short sentence for the boys to read like ‘The tan cat can tap’.
By the 20th evening, they could sound out words and read to
each other. It became a family approach to learning.”
Reading skills weren’t the only tutoring Hentschel provided
her children.“When the boys were young, our family would vis-
it museums and parks in northern Chicago and wait in the long
lines. While in line we wanted to focus our children on some-
thing helpful,” continued Hentschel. “Because I am a mathema-
tician, I would do algebraic problems with my son. I made up
Aardvarks and Zucchinis: A Des Moines mom’s
creative approach to teaching her child to read
BY LAURA CARLSON