Reading....

I was having a bit of a dilemma this past week with Bear and her adventures in beginning to read. Having never taught anyone to read, and not being able to remember learning to read myself - as far as I can remember, I was born knowing how to read! :c) - it's hard for me to know what is typical for her age and grade. I DO know, however, that she's doing fantastically. She can sound out virtually any word that is put in front of her, and, therein lies the "problem", if there even is one. We've been going through The Ordinary Parents Guide to Teaching Reading, and have just passed the lessons covering ending blends and were getting ready to start beginning blends, when I realized that she still sounds out most words. Even small 3-letter words like "ran" and "hen", and, while she can look at any of the blends that we've covered and say their sound when I show it to her on a flash card, she doesn't blend it together when she initially sees it in a word.
So, being the fruitcake overachieving homeschooling mom that I am, I immediately begin to panic that there is SOME sort of thing that I've mis-taught and that she'll NEVER begin to blend the sounds together and will go to COLLEGE saying, "Th-ee, the, fff-aaa-t, fat, c-aaa-t, cat, rrr-aaa-nnn, ran."!

Then I realize (thankfully) that she probably just needs some practice!

SO, I went through the OPG lessons that we've done and took the little sentences and stories that they have in there, and typed them up on colored paper (to make it seem more fun!). I put these in a folder and, yesterday, had her pick one page that she wanted to read out loud. We put a stamp at the top of the page so that we'll be able to keep track of which ones she's read. I'm just going to review these lessons for a little while until she is a bit more smooth, and THEN we'll move on!