Evie Learns to Read... well, almost.

Well, we did it. I should say, "We Did It!" I have to admit that though the week was full of fun projects and exciting learning moments, there were also a few tears shed by us all and at least one "I hate school!" from Evie. Still, I would say things went well.

Evie is finally learning to read and is writing a bit, too. She really put up a fight about the whole reading class idea, but I won her over. It went something like this:
Evie: "I don't want to do this." Arms crossed over her chest in defiance.
Me: "Come on, honey. Don't you want to read? Think of all the great books you could read me."
Evie: "NO!" head shakes emphatically.
Me: Sigh. "If you give me five minutes of your attention - with a smile - I'll give you 5 minutes on the computer playing any game you choose. Is that a deal?"
Evie: "That's a deal!" Giant smile and instant attention.
Me: (Wow! That actually worked?)

So, thinking I should probably use my time wisely because I might not get a second chance with her, I pulled out a set of sparkly post-it note style letters that I bought on a whim. They got another smile out of her. I started with the letter A that we had already discussed and started a phonics lesson on word building. We moved sticky, sparkly letters around making "at" words until she had a nice long list of words that she could read all by herself. By the time we were finished, ten minutes had passed and she had forgotten to be miserable. Wow! I forget that I really know how to do this stuff!

By Friday she had more than 30 words in her "Words I Know" notebook and she was talking about writing her own story. (Is she a Pogue, or what?!) So, it looks like I have a goal for the next week: take Evie from novice reader to budding author. Sounds like fun to me!