reading

Readin’ and Talkin’

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The kid and the baby, aka Claire and Molly, each demonstrated some significant progress today in their respective fields of reading and talking.

This morning, Claire had written out the random letters O-L-A-J-A on a piece of paper and decided to try to sound out the word. She had been learning letter sounds at school for the past several months and was feeling pretty comfortable with the letters now. She slowly and deliberately read it out: “Oooh la jah.” It was amazing to see her really read something. And this was definitely not a case where she just recognized a word from memory, like her own name. (Granted, she might have been referring to the small Spanish village of Santa Olaja de la Accion, but I am going to stick with the random letters theory.) I decided to go with the momentum and write out my name: P-A-T. She slowly read it out: “Paaat. That’s your name!” Definitely not a fluke.

Molly was impressed with Claire’s reading but did not want to be overshadowed, so she showed off a bit of her own hard earned new skill while getting ready for bed that night. Kit and I were chatting while putting Molly into her pajamas when Kit used the phrase “thank you” in the middle of a sentence. A few seconds later, Molly clearly said, or tried to say, “thank you” three times in a row. It sounded kind of like “tank wa, tank wa, tank wa”. We cheered and gave her a big hug. Molly beamed, and then started saying “Daddy” over and over. That is a pretty easy go-to word for her, along with her favorite “uh oh”. Molly tried to say “Mommy” but is still having trouble with that darn “mmm” sound, but she definitely tried. Molly also has trouble with the “nnn” sound as well and has not yet learned to say “no”, but I am sure that will be a future favorite.


Little Miss Memory

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Claire’s favorite new book is Little Miss Giggles, which I picked up at Target for fun during a normal shopping trip. She loves this little book about a little girl (Little Miss Giggles) who loses her giggle, and her friends eventually help her get it back with a clever trick.

Kit has been reading this book to Claire for bedtime for the last couple of weeks. On the back cover of the book is a list of all the other Little Miss… books. There are about 33 of them in all. Claire likes us to read the other book titles to her at the end (maybe as a way of extending story time!). We read through them all pretty fast now. But last night, Claire decided to read all the titles by herself. She ran through them without a hitch. “Little Miss Bossy, Little Miss Naughty, Little Miss Neat, Little Miss Sunshine…” through all 33 of them.

Claire has also taken to “reading” most of the contents of book herself too, with a few little reminders to get her going after she gets stuck. And this is not an especially short little book. You would almost think she was actually reading, but at the moment she is settling for memorization. She must think reading is hard right now, but I don’t know how she does this!


P as in “prenatal”

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Claire came home from school the other day with a big white envelope and some brief instructions to fill it with with things starting with P or J. This is, of course, to help kids learn about the different letters and how they apply to real-world situations. We left most of the work up to Claire, and she quickly divined than we should fill her bag with a pen, a pencil, a penny, and some nail polish. The next morning before school, she said excitedly, “I know! Piano!” Then she hurried over to her little toy piano (a small plastic keyboard, really) and dumped it in the bag. We never came up with any J words, at least not ones we had laying around the house that would fit in an envelope.

Tonight over dinner, Kit and I were asking Claire what “P” objects that the other kids found. She mumbled a couple of things, then suddenly blurted out, “I know! Prenatal! I should bring your pills to school, Mom!” I wish she had. I think it is safe to say she would have been the first kid to bring prenatal pills to school for this exercise.

By the way, I think this was Claire’s first real homework assignment. Actually, she did a different pair of letters, I think B and H, a couple of weeks ago.

TODO: Go back and tag all entries before this with “claire” too

“Intelligence”

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Kit was reading Claire her books for bedtime tonight, when I heard Kit say, “Claire! Wow! I am so proud of you!” Usually Claire doe not get that reaction for simply listening to a story, so I was wondering what was gong on. Fortunately, Kit called me in and said that she was really proud of Claire. Claire explained, “I spelled a really big word!” Prompted for the word in question, Claire said she had spelled intelligence.

What Claire had actually done was read the letters from a book, so in a sense she read the word rather than spelled it from memory, but still it was extremely surprising. We don’t normally work on spelling with Claire. She might have occasionally spelled very short words like cat. But apparently she has been paying attention in school, and now she seems to really know her letters, at least I, N, T, E, L, G, and C.

Chrysanthemum

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Claire’s favorite book these days is Chrysanthemum. It has become the book she always wants to read, and she still enjoys it no matter how many times you read it to her. She even likes to “read” it to us. She does a pretty good job at it too, considering that she has some sections of the book memorized. There is a page in the book with pictures of about 16 kids, and a name above each. Claire has all the names on that page memorized.

When Claire reads to us, she starts out, “Chrysanthemum, by Kevin Henkes. The day she was born was the best day in her mother and father’s life…” then she needs some gentle reminders past that. Kevin Henkes is the author of another past favorite, Lilly’s Purple Plastic Purse. Both books feature mice dealing with tough times at school and ultimately coming out better in the end. I am sure our little mouse is going through the same process every weekday.

Here is some footage of Claire reading Chrysanthemum.

Still Can’t Read

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Claire was in her room looking at a pile of her books before bath time this evening. Then she brought a big board book into the bathroom where I was drawing her bath and getting everything ready for bedtime. She asked me to read the book, and I said sorry, not right now, I am busy. She threw the book down and started crying. Usually she gets a little annoyed, but not that upset, when I tell her I’m busy. So I asked her what was the matter. She looked down, with tears in her eyes, and said in a quiet voice, “I’m too little to read it.” It was so sweet and sad. Then Kit showed up and read the book to her and cheered her up. I am afraid Claire has a pretty long wait before she can read books “all by her own self”, as she says, but it is nice to see she is motivated.