Reading on the horizon

Yesterday we got started on our second unit with "Hondo and Fabian," a seemingly simple book about a cat and a dog and what each animal did on a certain day. Short book. Simple text and, to me, somewhat of a yawner. In fact I read the book twice Sunday night to make sure there wasn't some hidden message or some grand thing that I was missing.  Nope. It was same those 2 times and the same the 3 times I read it yesterday. The girls however, loved the book. If you didn't notice in the last sentence, they had me read it 3 times back to back.

They worked on reading comprehension, naming the differences between what the cat did and what the dog did, acting out the Hondo and the Fabian activities, and 1-20 numerical order and recognition. That seems like a lot for 1 day but folks, it only took us 1 hour.

Delores' excitment after lining up the number cards

 (Don't ya love the hairdo? Lol)

If there is anything I can say about this new curriculum, Moving Beyond the Page, is that it is designed to jam pack learning into kids without them even realizing they are learning. Both the girls have learned more in these 2-3 short weeks than I could have ever imagined.

Which leads me to the reason behind my title. There is a page in "Hondo and Fabian," where the dog and cat are eating beside each other in their own bowls and "dog," and "cat," are written in each of their bowls. When we got to this page Delores, without being prompted, pointed to each of the bowls, sounded out and read each of the words! She read 2 words! Is that not awesome? 

During nap time reading we were looking at a lift-the-flap book with animal sounds on the top of the flap and the corresponding animal under the flap. Just to see whether or not reading "dog," and "cat," was a fluke I asked her to sound out "baa." She sounded out the word, then made the animal sound and then guessed the animal under the flap. I am one proud mama.

Following the Montessori method I've always referred to the letters of the alphabet by their sound instead of their name. Delores still doesn't know the names of most letters. That is meant to come later. Delores instead has learned to associate the letter symbol with its sounds so now she is able to sound out a word one letter at a time and is teaching herself to read!

This by far has been the most daunting task for me as a homeschooler. I've kind of always thought if I could teach her read it would be gravy from there. Probably not, but it is my biggest goal and hurdle at this very moment.

The curriculum we are using now teaches a new sight word every week which is a word that doesn't follow the traditional letter sounds so a child can't sound out the word. It has to be learned and remembered by sight alone. With the sight words in combination with the letter sounds she already knows I can see reading on the horizon. I can feel the reading explosion gaining strength and power and pretty soon our little Delores will be a reader!

Hmm...I guess now would probably be a good time to read-proof my house to make sure none of my embarrassing secrets get out.  :)