Budding Reader

I have been noticing over the last few days that Emma is reading a lot more. She was sitting on the floor yesterday with a Bone comic book, sucking on a lollipop, reading.

Every few minutes she would read a word or two out loud, then keeping doing her thing, then read a few more words out loud. 

I was trying to take a sneaky photo through my hoop weaving project, but the red eye reduction gave me away. 

Eventually she stopped caring that I was taking pictures. 

When we went to Chili's today for lunch, Emma was reading all the words on her cup, as well as the "Food To Go" sign that was right over our table. 

It is so much fun listening to her read!!!

Photo's and Reading

I found a new site that I love, Chronicle of an Infant Bibliophile. I could go on all night about the cool things I have found on her site, but seeing as I have already spent all night pouring over her site, I will just leave it for you to discover on your own.

I found My First Photo Assignment so intriguing I stayed up way past my bedtime adapting it to Emma's current learning desire. Her desire to read.

I thought it was super cute. Given how much Emma likes to take pictures, I thought it might be a neat way to sneak in reading while getting a better idea of how she sees the world.

So, I created a simple list of 10 words that I feel she can read with little or no help.

Tomorrow I will post the list somewhere where she will be sure to see it. With her name on it, I figure she will want to know what it is. I think I might have her take a picture of the list (with the date written on it), then have her head "out" for her photographic scavenger hunt. I will leave it up to her if she wants to read the entire list right away, or if she wants to read one word at a time. As she photographs each "word", I will have her mark it off on her list. When the list is complete, I will have her take another photo of the completed list.

Having her take a before and after picture of the list helps me know where to look for the pictures. Emma tends to take pictures of odd and random things on a regular basis, so this little step will help me out a lot. Plus, if she really gets a kick out of it and wants to do more, having the photos of the lists will make it that much easier to manage when uploading. 

Just in case she does really enjoy it, I have 4 lists ready to go. 

I like the thought of having a theme, although it may end up being boring for Emma when she takes her photos. Trial and error folks, that is how we live our lives.

For the colors, I think the words themselves might be a bit hard for her, so I changed the font color to match the word.

If I stick with this enough, and Emma likes it enough, I may even take her camera disk to the store to print out small photos so she can glue them next to the words.

Hmm, something to think about especially considering that would make a neat addition to her education portfolio.

I will update you on how it works out. Until then, here is another fun and random photo.

Emma and Da having a snowball fight!

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.

The Reading Begins

Emma has always had a love for books, words, and letters. Ever since Emma could hold a book, she has never been far from one. It may have something to do with all the reading we do with her, both planned and spontaneous (as in street signs, posters, and other things we see in our day to day travels)

A few months ago we where visiting family in NH when Emma decided to sound out a word she found sitting on a window sill in my sisters dinning room. The word was 'family'. With no help, and no prodding, Emma sounded out and read the word all by herself (makes me think this unschooling thing might just work out). I have to tell you, that is an awesome feeling, and the huge smile on her face made it even better.

Two days ago, Emma decided she wanted to learn to read. She has told me this before, and we had given it a go before, but now seems to be different. She seems to really want to learn to read.

So, we start small. When I read with her, I have her sound out a word or two each page or so. Last night in the tub I brought out the laminated words. Emma read a word, then blew bubbles, read a word, blew bubbles. She did a great job, and I am excited about her learning to read.

Our biggest problem I think will be that she likes to try to guess what the word is instead of sounding the word out. We are working on it.

I think a blog post with no pictures is kinda boring, so on days when I have no relevant pictures to post, I think I will leave you with a picture taken by Emma.

From on of the Bone books written by Jeff Smith