Learning To Read

So I’m still spending a few minutes each night going through some reading lessons for CootieBoy. I’m not following the lessons verbatim, because CB likes to just do the active stuff like READING rather than look at boring letters on their own. We’re about a third of the way through the book and despite it becoming more advanced, he’s doing well.

In recent lessons he had to read the words liked “said” and “was,” which aren’t necessarily words that follow phonics rules. Based on phonics rules, to him “said” should sound like the word “sad” with an ih sound in the middle, and “was” should sound like the word “has” as opposed to “wuz.” So I explained that some words are tricky and don’t necessarily sound like they look, and that “said” and “was” were two examples of that. He was okay with it, and two nights later when those words came up in a story, he read them correctly without hesitation. YAY!

CootieGirl still has no interest and I fear that CB’s excitement over it is causing her to feel inadequate even though she is learning words at kindergarten. She did well a couple nights ago when we did a chapter, but claimed she was tired after a few minutes of going through a lesson and at some point refused to do any more. I’m hoping that Denis can sit in with me while I do a lesson with CB so he can see what I’m doing with CB and start doing it with CG since she obviously doesn’t want to do the lessons with me.

In any event, CB is doing quite well with his reading and I predict by the spring he’ll be able to read all his Dr. Seuss books on his own without any help from me.