Glowing Report

We got a wonderful report from Kaitlyn Joy's teacher about how she's doing. On Monday we had a parent teacher conference. After getting caught by a train Kj and I were a little late; Neal met us there. We all rushed in and quickly got Kj settled in ELS. Now... this was our first experience with a PTC. Is 15 minutes enough to learn how your child is doing? I guess so, but not for much going back and forth. I must say it's really hard to be humble you're being told how smart your child is and that all your hard work is paying off. Oh yeah our kid is smart!!! Her teacher said Kj is a big help. She's the only one in the class who can read so she helps the other kids find the cubbie with their name on it. I think in that case it's not so much reading, but letter recognition of the child's first name. Whatever the case, my little smarty knows her stuff.

Her knowledge started with alphabet flash cards. Then Super Why and Word World. PBS is great for educational preschooler shows. While watching Super Why Kj got really good at calling out the letters. We then heard about Leap Frog videos and jumped in with both feet. She learned her letter sounds then we moved onto putting the letters together. Recently I bought the video that teaches the silent E, vowel dominance (two vowels together the second is silent), and merged letter sounds like th, sh, and ch. She's catching onto it quickly. She often says, "When two vowels go a walking the first one does the talking." Since she started school in August we have been doing word flash cards in the car line while waiting on them to take the kids out of the cars. She's good at them. However she doesn't want to tackle reading a book. This is a little annoying to me, but I can't push her or she may stop trying all together. Soooooo... Kj welcomed a new game into her afternoon. I bought a small glass jar and some Skittles. I call it the Skittle Reading Game. She reads a page in a beginner reading book and gets a Skittle. At the end of reading and getting Skittles I give her bonus Skittles amounting to however many pages she read. We've been talking about doing this for a week or more, but just tried it yesterday. She was a trooper. She read three pages. My one problem with the game are the books. They have to be a book she's never read before or has only heard irregularly. If she knows the book she skips reading and starts telling the story from memory. We are currently reading Hero Dad. Our next book will be Biscuit Meets the Class Pet.