Teach Your Child to Read!

It's great when your children come back to you and tell you that something you did was a success.

Has that ever happened to you?  I think I got my first real kudos the other day!  (I was tempted to say 'kudo' just to make my husband roll his eyes, but I didn't.  Teachable moment here:

kudos |ˈk(y)o͞oˌdōs, -ˌdōz, -ˌdäs|nounpraise and honor received for an achievement.•informal compliments or congratulations: kudos to everyone who put the event together.ORIGIN late 18th cent.: Greek.

usage: Kudos comes from Greek and means ‘glory.’ Despite appearances, it is not a plural form. This means that there is no singular form kudo and that use as a plural, as in the following sentence, is incorrect: he received many kudos for his work (correct use is he receivedmuch kudos for his work).

Okay, so, back to the story...

TMax has been doing a lot of reading aloud in English class and he's shocked by the number of kids in his Honors English class who can't read without struggling through the sentences! He doesn't assume that he can read because he's so smart, he assumes it's because I used a great text to teach him:

I love. this. book.  I used it for all 6 kids and they all read fluently.  In fact, they all read fluently on a second grade level when they finished the book, no matter what age they were.  Now, I will admit for the sake of people who know me and my kids, that I think they're all very smart and I'm lucky in the homeschooling department, but they don't all love to read.  They do it for school, but a couple of them only read if they're forced to.  Yet they CAN read very well aloud.  Comprehension is another issue entirely.

My children were varying ages when we started the 100 lessons, and they took different amounts of time to go through it.  We breezed through certain sections when they were doing well, and we slowed to a crawl or took a break entirely when it got too much for them, but they all finished eventually, well before 2nd grade.  In fact, Brendan finished it just after his 4th birthday.  Remember what I said about reading on a 2nd grade level?  Yeah.  But that was him, not me.  He's like that.   :-)

So, I highly recommend this book, whether you are starting later or earlier.  But even better, is the praise from my son who recognizes that he got a good start in homeschooling.  He acknowledged some other area which I'll tell you about later....after I ask him again what it was.  lol.