This morning Younger Daughter read the title of "Why Johnny Can't Read, and What You Can Do About it." In general, she is doing much less guessing and much more sounding out (although if she's being careless, she still guesses — for instance, she tried to read "knight" as "kangaroo" this morning.)
When she makes mistakes now, they are more likely to be what I think of as "good" mistakes — that is, mistakes that result from applying phonetic rules to strangely spelled words. For instance, she was looking over my shoulder the other day, and correctly read "grown", except she pronounced it to rhyme with "crown." In my book, that's a good mistake, but a weird spelling. Why should "grown" and "groan" have wildly different spellings but the same pronunciation?
Sounds like real progress, FedUpMom! I'm seeing the same things with my second grade daughter. I've decided that I need to be responsible for actually teaching my kids. I don't think our highly regarded school department ("it's the best in the area!") is up to the challenge.
ReplyDeleteKim, I couldn't agree more. I've determined that it's up to me to make sure that Younger Daughter learns to read, and when we've got her reading at a reasonable level, I'll get her started on Singapore Math. It's ridiculous that I need to do this, but I just don't trust schools to teach any more. I also live in a highly regarded school district.
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