New Reader!

Miss Maddie is pleased as punch that she is now reading simple c-v-c words.  She had been dying to use our pink boxes at preschool for the longest time - sometimes she would get a box out only to put it away because she was having a hard time trying to sound out the words.  But last week, she got them out, asked if I could NOT please help her, because she could do it herself.  So I watched from the table while I gave another his reading lesson.  

She did the first box, slowly sounded out each letter, then blended them together!  I was so excited! and so was she!  She worked on a second box, then a third - she got tired in the middle of that one, but all in all she read 15 words, and matched them to the right object.  She couldn't wait to tell Allie and Collin when they got home from school, and showed her new feat to Kevin when he got home from work.  The next preschool day, she did the same, just super into her new-found skill.

The thing with Maddie, is that I haven't really worked with her all that much.  True, she has been in preschool the last two years, but oh she is so stubborn and wants to do everything with NO help from me.  A few weeks ago, she passed off the first 26 Spalding phonograms (there are 71 total), earning herself a "Phonogram Expert" award and candy bar in preschool (we have a challenge in preschool to recite all of them without any help from me).   That one I didn't really do more than just have her recite the phonograms with the preschoolers 2x a week.  Sometimes she gets bored and she doesn't want to participate.  But she obviously was taking it all in, and just listening quietly did its job! She is really good at it.  She is also at the right window for writing - she writes like crazy and has recently taken to writing letters and numbers all the time.  

I love this stage. The magic age of 4 - the age they burst in knowledge and application in reading and writing!  It's a whole new world, and I can't wait til she can get to reading sentences.    I think this age is my favorite - next to newborn goodness, of course.  So cool! And Miss Maddie, of course, you did it all yourself, (with a tiny bit of help from mom)!