Language Arts- Reading

I started Ballet Girl on some more interesting stories. Since they are longer, I read them to her before she attempts to read them herself.  The stories that I have picked are funny stories, stories that she can laugh with and stay engaged. This particular story we read as a read-aloud last October and it proved to be very entertaining.







Pirate Mom, oh, my! This is a fantastic, silly story. Sunlight boy could not start laughing. Great story to keep you entertained. If you want to go deep you can discuss if we always know the consequences of what we want. Sometimes, often, we do not know in what ways the world around us will be impacted by a particular action or phrase of ours.

And, last but certainly not least, here is this gem of a silly story about a stinky giant and how he impacts the lives of two kids. Again one can relate it to the message that since we are not alone in the Universe, we might as well be mindful of others our actions and words can impact. I highly recommend this stories for their entertainment value as read-alouds, and as self-paced readers. Since the text is longer than what Sunlight boy has been reading thus far, we split the reading over 3-4 days. Knowing the story upfront helps her, plus before she begins the new section, we review/recall/re-read the story thus far.


My child is approaching the fluency stage; she decodes and deduces from the context with relative ease bigger, unknown words. However, she is not interested in chapter books without pictures or in chapter books with only black pictures. She is interested in funny, silly, colorful child fiction. The series listed above
satisfy her desires.

I do not like the early chapter books that are typically recommended to readers at this stage. The only chapter books that I have found satisfying are the Piggy books and the Mercy Watson books. Most chapter books intended for the emergent reader are plain dull and speak down to the reader. Some even use incorrect grammar and/or spelling. My main complaint is the content. I am glad that there are interesting, simple non-chapter book alternatives that we can resort to at this stage.

Learning to Read

Ballet girl started with the Bob Books. She has been getting valuable instruction at school as well. From the summer of 2013 when we started reading more seriously (one Bob book per week) until now she has advanced considerably.

When I read with her, this is what it looks like: She reads aloud and I am sitting with her; I still run my fingers under the words and if I do not, she does; she attempts to read, phonetically, longer, less familiar words. For instance today we came across action and emotion and I told her that the combination of letters tion is read [shn]. She understood it. This is the first encounter with this combination of letters, we will have to encounter it another 5-6 times before the understanding turns into solid knowledge. Another thing I have worked on with her that the rules that she is told about at school are not exclusive rules: as exemplified by book and door; read and head; same and some. Today when reading together the If you take a mouse to school book we encountered a sentence like this: "I went to the museum, saw a picture and filmed it"-which the museum or the picture? It is not clear. Well, Ballet girl, realized that the it was ambiguous so we had a discussion about this. We will encounter this many times and eventually she will understand to look for this. What this event showed me is that when reading she thinks about the meaning of the content. This is very comforting because most of the content she attempts to read is content that she is already familiar with from our read-aloud sessions (which is another reason I find read alouds so valuable).

At home, from the Bob Books we moved to the Piggie and Elephant books (which she herself discovered). Now, we are tackling the If you take a mouse to the movies series books. The first non-series book she tackled with success is Belinda and the glass slipper.

I have learnt a lot in the last few weeks about reading. For instance, as much as parents want their kids to be geniuses, for reading and everything else, it is important to take it slow so that not to miss the basics. Short, enjoyable, picture books are not be neglected but to be used especially in the learning phase. Chapter books tend to be very shallow in content and should only be used for the reader learning to silent-read. The novels have to wait at least until the beginning of 4th grade. The early reading novels  are also fairly shallow in content which is disappointing.


UPDATE 4/24/2014: The easy P.D.Eastman books are great. Big Dog,Little Dog; My nest is best; Flap your wings; Go Dog Go.