OmegaMom

So.  Doin’ the Snoopy Dance here.  Just proud and bustin’ out all over about it.

Jack and Annie #485,271 is called “Carnival at Candlelight”.

We finished it last night (our first chapter book!).  The dotter wanted to look at the cover.  She started sounding out the word “Carnival”.

“Kuh…kah…kaarrrr…karrrennn…karneh…karnehvvvv…karnehval…”

She sounded it all out on her own.  And then she sounded out “at” and “candlelight”.  And though she needed help with the “juh” sound in “magic”, she sounded that and “tree” and “house” out.

(It’s “karnEHval” because I was pronouncing it the Spanish/Italian way because it’s a specific holiday, rather than a carnival at the fair.)

Woohoo!

Don’t push, don’t push, don’t push, says OmegaMom to herself.  Let her do it at her own pace, says OmegaMom to herself.  Don’t push!

Speaking of pushing, Jiaozi has a great series of posts up about the kindergarden experience kids encounter these days.  Read ‘em and weep.  I am so thankful that the dotter’s kindergarden (so far) is relatively laid back–they’re doing a letter a week, a number a week, things that the dotter already knows, but they’re doing it slowly and gently and not pushing it which gives the kids time to just…be kids, get to know each other, learn the rules of the school game.

OmegaBro, my fuddy duddy brother, has a (gasp, it’s not possible!) 13-year-old and 11-year-old, and has been dismayed by the amount of homework and pushing they’ve gotten in all their school districts.  There’s a lot of debate about the role of homework and the necessity of homework and how much homework kids should do…but there’s my Ph.D. bro who doesn’t remember doing that much homework in elementary school and still managed to get three college degrees trying to figure out what is best for his kids.

I read to the dotter.  She loves to write words, so we’ve been working together on sounding things out so she knows what letters to use–”What sound starts ‘horse’?  Huh-huh-huh.”  “Rrrrr–what’s that?”  “What’s the last sound?  Horssssse.”  And suddenly she’s turning it around into looking at letters and turning it into a sound, rather than taking a sound and turning it into a letter.  I’m pleased as punch, and I’m pleased that we haven’t made it a chore or made her dislike it, and I’m desperately holding myself in check so that she discovers how much fun reading can be (once you practice it) all on her own.  There’s a small amount of dismay in the foreshadowing on her reading coloring page that she is to turn in once a month to Mrs. Shoehook–this year, the kids are just coloring in an item for each day they are read to or read; next year, we’re going to have to specify how many minutes we’ve read/she’s read, and how many pages.  Sigh.  I just want her to learn to love it.