The Reading Continues

As I am not a teacher, I don't know the exact way to go about teaching Emma to read, but I do know that she makes my job super easy.

Why?

Because Emma loves horses. One of her favorite computer games is Bella Sara. A person can buy trading cards for Bella Sara and Emma has been collecting them for about 6 months now. Up until now she just liked them because with each purchase you got horseshoes for the game (and most of them have cool horses on them). Today she was playing with them near me while I was busy dealing with some family stuff.

Thankfully I had my mom ears on (you know, the ones where you are half listening to your child but as they are not talking to you, they don't require your full attention).

As I am doing whatever I was doing, I heard, "Duh, duh owe, duh owe wuh."

I finally clued in to what she was saying and I look over at her and she is sounding out the name on one of her Bella Sara cards. I didn't interrupt, but just watched and listened.

Emma- "Duh owe wuh ah, duh owe wuh ah guh, duh owe wuh ah guh eh, duh owe wuh ah guh eh rrr. Dowager!" (The card at the top of the post, and did you realize how hard it is to spell the sounds of the letters?!)

Me- "Emma, that was amazing! You did a fantastic job and you sounded it out all on your own. High five!"

After high fives she moved on to a second card.

 She sure picked some difficult ones to start off with, but it was so much fun watching her eyes light up each time she figured out the word!

She "read" one more (she actually just recognized this one from the picture), and then she was done.

As I mentioned earlier, I was dealing with stuff, so I didn't really press her to do more. Besides, I figure she did well enough on her own and I would just frustrate her at this point.

Once Da got home from school, I mentioned to him (with Emma in ear shot) that Emma head read some of her Bella Sara cards today. His, "Oh yeah!" got Emma excited enough to show him the cards she read. So the two of them sounded out and read a few more. She was game for a few minutes, but it quickly got old for her. This is the card that they read together. It actually had 2 names one it, Cinnamon and Nutmeg, both spices that she got to smell after sounding them out.

So the lesson that she taught me today was when it really matters to her, she will figure it out, but it isn't as much fun when someone else is making her do it.

Oh, and three vaccine shots in her legs makes it hard to concentrate.