Liza
Stop
Words my daughter can match to the appropriate numeral in a little matching game I made for her, but hasn't shown me she can identify in other contexts:
One
Two
Three
Four
Five
Six
Boy, does she love that matching game, especially first thing in the morning when she's chock full of patience and really receptive to new things. She got all six numbers down cold this morning, and she kept wanting to add the other four she saw on the table, but I wanted to go slow so I was sure she wasn't getting overloaded.
Hey, when the kid tells me that what she wants to do this summer is learn to swim underwater and learn to read, I sign her up for swim classes and make flashcards. And so far she can paddle around with swimmies, put her face in the water, not freak out when she goes under accidentally, and sorta read eight words.
Have I mentioned recently that she's brilliant? Still can't wipe her own butt, but brilliant nonetheless.
****
Jason and I have a running joke that whenever my mother or I confront a new problem or challenge, the first thing we do is go read a book about it. I guess that explains why I've been scouring the homeschooling web sites for teaching tips, and I ordered a library book about how to teach your kid to read (by the folks who make Between the Lions, which Liza loves on the Chick-Fil-A kids' meal CDs she's got, but is only moderately interested in watching). The book is moderately useful, if only to sort of prepare me for how complicated the whole mess is. I'm glad I'm not responsible for teaching her all of it, just trying to get her started, because jeez, who made all these rules?
I don't remember learning to read, but I swear I didn't learn 90% of these rules, except as "Well of course c-e-i-l-i-n-g has a soft C at the beginning, that's just the way it is." How come nobody ever told me that the C is only soft if it's followed by E, I, or Y? Did I really have to learn that from a cheesy fake country song? "Certainly enough to make me cry," indeed.
The book is actually quite helpful for the analytical side of me, the part who wants to know what the heck is going on inside the kid's head while she's trying to figure all this out. And it gives a lot of benchmarks to measure her against, things she needs to learn to do before she'll be reading fluently. Plus, it's got me thinking about things like the fact that the same 100 words make up 50% of everything we read (somebody else's 100 words list here, in case you're skeptical). That sort of list would have been helpful when I was, I don't know, trying to learn Japanese in 6 weeks before we moved there, maybe?
Anyhow, the reading thing is something we're trying when she's interested, and if she loses interest I'll return the library book (and the phonics CD, and the Electric Company DVDs) and go help her learn about bugs or clay or cooking or dance or whatever she's interested in next. After all, they've got books about those at the library too, right?
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