Reading Updates

Due to Cadence's personality, I have found she does better in learning when I just back off and let her practice on her own. If I try to push it, she shuts down and begins to insist "I can't do it!" So, when she came out holding a book, "The Empty Pot" and announced she had read the whole thing, I was floored. Of course, I've recognized her reading skills have improved as she reads signs and store names while we're out running errands, but I hadn't sat down to see how far she's come recently

So, I finally grabbed a few books and got her to read to me. I'm pretty sure she already has half the kindergarten sight words down plus another few dozen (for example "princess" and "frozen" and "brave" are recognized on sight). What's really astounded me, though, is the rules she's picked up on already. Over the past few weeks as she asks "what's that word" I would talk about "sometimes..." and explain how vowels work. For bedtime tonight, she read most of a book to me. She stumbled a bit over words like "lighthouse" and "seashells" (see-ah-shulls), but instead of getting upset she couldn't do it, she puzzled them out and asked for help.

Ah, maturity. At least... in some circumstances.

I attempted to gauge Megan's reading skills, knowing she's been attempting to sound stuff out on her own, but it turns out she'd memorized the book I had picked out to read with her. I don't know when she memorized it, whether it was from the few times I read it, or if Cadence has been reading it, or if she even puzzled it out herself by sounding it out, looking at the pictures and recalling what I had read in the past.

She is trying, though, so it means when I sit down and work with her, her skills will undoubtedly improve. For now, I'm giving her space, though, to see if she's a self-learner like Cadence or if I should give her a little guidance. So far, I've found she gives up a little too easily when I'm involved and expects me to provide the answer after one half-hearted attempt at sounding out a word she doesn't know.

Connor... is not reading. Surprise? He does like books, though, and will turn pages and ask "wassat?". His vocabulary itself is slowly evolving. At dinner today, he asked for "more" instead of his normal point and grunt. He shoved too much food in his mouth at one point and started to choke, which isn't funny, but once he spit the worst of it on the floor he went looking for Beau. I had to cover my mouth to not laugh too hard when I let the dog in from outside and Connor stood at the side of the table and called in a little stern voice "Beau!" and pointed at the mess with a stern look on his face.

He also discovered kisses this afternoon and has been giving them out by the dozens ever since. Of course, his first kisses involved biting, but he quickly corrected that. It was too cute when he hurt Cadence and then attempted to give her a kiss, but she was crying so her mouth was open and he couldn't kiss her properly. He kept tattling on her by calling my name and pointing at her mouth to get me to fix it. ("mom" by the way is a command, not a name, in his world. It means "something is wrong, now fix it", which is a pretty decent definition of mom in general, so it works). Anyway, when he couldn't give kisses he just kept patting her head, rather roughly, and climbing on her to give her hugs and attempting to get to her mouth again only to discover it now buried in her arm when she was curled up (prompting another bout of tattling on his end).

**My poetry contest, in case anyone cared for updates: The lack of internet for the last week of June meant I didn't get the poems submitted on time. I was able to get the prompts daily and I did finish them daily, but with no way to post them I got 0s on 4 of the days, which put me firmly in 8th out of 11 (or was it 12?) in the final scores. To say I was disappointed is an understatement. I didn't expect to place and I did do this mostly for me, but to have my name so far down on the list due to something I had no control over... Oh well. I have a handful of poems I'll probably transfer to my poetry folder, since they're decent enough, on the site and the rest will be tucked away**