Um, yeah. Hooray?
She finished last week, and we've been taking a break from doing any "lessons" since then. I had started reading Pippi Longstocking to her a few weeks ago, so we finished that up during the time we used to use for her phonics stuff, and now we've moved on to Puff the Magic Dragon. I have to say, she's handling that book better than I expected, what with all the scary giant pirates and dying stars and stuff. Usually that sort of thing sends her screaming for the hills, but now she seems to be fine as long as I tell her ahead of time that everything works out okay in the end.
Meanwhile, she's been reading to herself for pleasure, without me having to encourage her in any way. We've got a basket of books next to the potty, and I know my services are going to be needed soon when she disappears and I hear her reading to herself. And last week she managed to read a new joke from the toy she got in her kids' meal, which she thought was just the coolest thing ever. (It was actually new to me, too, and pretty funny, at least the first 400 times: Knock knock - who's there? - repeat - repeat who? - who who who!).
She's still working through the Hooked on Handwriting stuff, although I haven't really seen that it's doing a lot to help her writing skills. We're filling up the house with the practice activities, though, so don't be surprised if you get an inappropriately-themed postcard from us with barely legible words on the back. Why someone decided to have "Viva Las Vegas!" as one of the cards in the practice pack, I'll never know.
Today she dragged out the Hooked on Phonics Master Reader set (which was stuffed behind a bunch of other stuff in my office) and wanted to look through it. It's a completely different format than the first module, and it's obviously geared toward older kids. Actually, it's obviously geared toward older boys, because the whole module has this sort of gritty robotic look to it, and a lot of the stories are about sports or scary animals. But there's a computer game, and the stories are on cool little cards instead of in a workbook, and there's a progress chart with stickers, so of course Little Miss Way Too Advanced For Her Age wanted to get started right away.
The new module is laid out a lot differently than the previous ones, and all of the actual lessons are in the computer game. There isn't a lot of explanation, at least in the first lesson, which assumes that you know what "syllables" are. That's not something Liza and I had discussed before, so we had to take a break to talk that over, but after that she was pretty quick to pick up the game. And she made it through the first story pretty well, with most of her stumbles more than likely due to the late hour when we attempted it instead of her inability to read them. So it looks like we'll be pressing on with this, at least whenever she asks to do it.
Lest you think I'm a total slavedriver, I will also admit that (at Liza's request) I've been using the library's Handy Manny DVD as a babysitter quite regularly over the past week or two. You'd be surprised how much flooring you can get laid in a bathroom during 90 minutes of "You break it, we fix it!" Plus, now the kid knows the names of most of the things in my toolbox, which was handy when Jason was working upstairs and I was downstairs and we needed someone to run tools between us. It's amazing how much faster things go when you've got someone to find the flathead screwdriver for you :)
* Don't remember Easy Reader? Morgan Freeman does. Check this out: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s_PuAqRQLKA
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