Learning to Read - Warning: Bragging Mommy Alert!

First, you need to know that I'm am notorious for starting something and then letting it fizzle out.  Sure, it may take years for it to finally die, but sadly a good chunk of my ideas are either lost intentions or faded memories of a good idea...  Not everything, but I can definitely name a few, so can Clint and probably you too...

So this year I have vowed to make a change in a few areas of my non-committal-ness.  One of those is doing chores with Madi.  We decided to make a chore chart with mostly things that she does everyday anyway, but now gets a sticker for doing them.  I also added the incentive that if she does it the first time she's asked AND doesn't whine, she earns a penny per chore.  It's been working pretty great and it has done wonders for helping us to have a little more order and routine around here.  The best thing about it is that it lets me see where we're slacking and what needs worked on.  Some of the "chores" are reading and school work.

Let me just say that that little chore chart has been the best thing I've ever done for organizing our lives.  Serious.

Moving on to why you clicked over to my blog - Madison learning to read!  I'm not going to say that it seems like yesterday that my sweet little Madi was my sweet little newborn baby and we were just teaching her to crawl and feed herself... that would be a lie.  And I try very hard to not lie on this blog since I kinda think of it as a journal-thinggy.  :O)  Why lie to posterity?  {Don't answer that!  It's was rhetorical!!}  LOL  BUT, it DOES seem like my sweet little baby is too little to be learning how to read, spell, write, add, subtract...  It hit me the other day that she'll be FIVE on her next birthday.  FIVE!!!!!!!  THAT seems a little crazy.  She'll start kindergarten in August, so I guess it really should be no surprise that she's ready to learn the basics of her education. 

Now, it didn't happen overnight.  I tried to teach her how to read about 8 months ago and she had little to no interest in the whole thing.  {My friend home schools her kids, and her little girl who is 6 months older than Madi was starting to learn so I decided to give it a try... }  When that flopped, I thought no big deal, I figured I would wait until she was ready otherwise she would hate it - and THAT's kinda counter-productive...  ANYway, we've been doing pre-school since August and in the last couple months I've seen a HUGE growth in her.  She's been asking "How do you spell such-and-such?" about tons of words for about the last 2 months.  Instead of spelling it out for her, I've been making the sound and having her figure out which letter it was. 

I finally decided to give it another shot and printed up a few reading exercises on my computer to try.  The first time we tried it, she took about 20 minutes to get through the first one, and was VERY wiggly.  I figrured it was either because she had to pee or because there were no pictures to help hold her interest... she peed and was still wiggly.  BUT, she was reading!  I got so excited that I made her a deal - if she would read everyday for a week, we would get her some real reading books.  That's when I found the Bob Books.  We LOVE these books!  They came in last Tuesday, and by Friday she could read 2 of them without help.  By Sunday she had added a third.  SO exciting!  She randomly gets them out throughout the day and reads to Maelee, her dolls, herself, us... I LOVE it! 

Then I found some fun puzzles at Costco that teach spelling/reading and basic math.  She's been having a blast with those too, and again, will randomly get them out throughout the day and put them together, even though we do them at least once a day as part of our "school work".  And they're self-correcting so I know she's actually getting the answers right when she does them on her own.  When we do the spelling ones, I have her sound out each letter and put it together using the letters along with the pictures.  She gets all excited when she puts one together without help and I get so excited that she understands what they mean and not just that they go together.  We also picked up the first few Brain Quest flip card packs and she's been flying through them.  It's SO amazing to watch her learn something everyday.  To see her graze a new concept one day, and then master it within the next few days {as much as a 4 year-old can} is incredible.  I get so giddy when we're reading a new Bob Book and she has to sound out a new word, one sound at a time, and then put them together to figure out what it says.  The look of glee and pride on her face is enough to melt my heart and make me want to buy everything that will help her learn!  Haha, I'm not going to, but it DOES make me want to! 

It makes me excited for her to have a head start in school, and it makes me feel like a pretty good Mom when I realize that I'M the one teaching my baby to read, not waiting for a teacher in a classroom surrounded by 20+ other kids to do it. 

Madison, I am SO proud of you! {...and I'm a little proud of me too!}  :O)