My daughter has been swearing to us that she doesn't know how to read. Reading is too hard. It's too much work. She can't figure it out. We all know this isn't the case because she really can read. I know she can do it. We were working on sounding out words all last week!
At first it was just little things. She was doing her school work and was told to color in the paint splashes in the color that was written on each one. I had walked away for a minute without having even read her the directions. She had already colored half of them by the time I got back. I was frustrated and ready to get on her about not waiting to get the directions and not following directions when I noticed that they were all done right. I asked her about it. "Why did you color those splats the color you did." She responded casually, "Because that's the word that was on them." This is not the first time she's pulled this kind of thing. It seems quite common for her. Actually, it seems more normal than not!
Just yesterday we were out for lunch. We were running errands and didn't have time to run all the way home to eat. I was feeling quite ill and forgot to pack snacks for all of us for the road. We just decided stopping out was easier. My daughter informed us that she wanted applesauce with whatever her order was. My partner, not thinking to actually look at the menu, insisted that they didn't have applesauce and was wondering where she got that crazy idea. There were no pictures of it anywhere and there was none out and easy to see. "I know because I re..." She cut herself off, realizing she had told us too much. "You what?" he asked her in response. "I read it on the sign..." she finally confessed.
With color words and things like that, I can kind of get it. Those are short words and not terribly complex. They're so commonly present in children's books and on shows such as Blue's Clues that it's not surprising she would pick up and learn to read her color words without me knowing. They're also classically simple to sound out if you can't quite get them. The word "applesauce" is a much more complex word. It's two words strung into one, and there's that deceptive thing with the "au" not having both sounds, two silent "e"s, and a "c" that sounds like an "s", all phonics rules we haven't yet gone over. She mastered them like a pro, all because she wanted to read off the menu.
Here I was, figuring that she didn't know how to read. I was somehow slacking as a mother because she wasn't reading yet. I was feeling like I'd have so much to catch up on because she'd never passed kindergarten reading level. Boy was I wrong! Not only is she succeeding, but she's far more advanced at this stuff than I thought! Maybe we just need to skip the rest of the review and go straight to her grade level! Of course, I won't do that, but we might just be finished with our review sooner than I thought at this rate! She's just flying through it all!
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