Something Ria Said

I obviously will not work today, as it is still Sunday, so that frees up a bit of time for things I haven't allowed myself to do much (since it would eat up MORE time with the girls AND/OR time I could work). Like BLOG! ^_^

Okay, so I was gathering some resources for reading class this week. (Ria is interested in learning more about Dinosaurs, so I'm trying to get together some reading material that she can handle on her own as well as some for us to tackle together.) While letting some material print out I remembered something really wonderful that Ria said during Reading Class (you see the connection, I hope).

We were reading one of the books I'd printed from Reading A-Z, which is an internet site for helping teachers and parents teach reading. I purchased a membership a few months ago and printed out bunches of books when we had plenty of ink and haven't been able to do much more because we ran out of ink. We've actually had plenty of ink for the last month or so, but I haven't had plenty of time to print the books, then fit them together, and glue them in together. Homeschooling is a LOT of work when you have very limited resources! Anyway...

Alistaire's Night is the title of the book we were preparing to read. It's an "I" in the reading levels (which go from "A-Z" on the site I mentioned. As part of the public school's expectations for education a K or 1st grader (I'm doing them together, so I don't know which it actually is) should be able to identify basic parts of a book, recognize the author, and illustrator.) So, we were talking about those things. Ria was sort of noticing the book's size and appearance and she commented to me, "Mama," in a very serious and slightly concerned tone of voice, "I think this story is missing a lots of pages!" I soothed her concern and told her all the pages were there. She seemed confused, but accepted what I told her. I was thinking about what she said tonight and realized that she was SO worried because she's become accustomed to reading Henry and Mudge and other books that are at least level 2 Readers (another way of ranking levels and I'm not sure exactly how they compare except that "I" and Level 2 are both somewhere in the first grade of expected reading ability. Anyway... Henry and Mudge books are at least 34 pages long with at least a few lines on each page OR a whole page of words and then a picture page facing it. So, Ria isn't put off by lots of words on a page... AND based on the comment, perhaps even enjoys it!? Isn't that AWESOME!? I LOVE IT!

Just as an added note on the reading level at which Ria is consuming books... I picked out a Barbie ballet reader book the other day (these numbered books are from the library) that was a Level 3, completely expecting that I would have to help her through a lot of it. As it turns out, Ria needed help with MAYBE 5 words and 2 of those were names! She's learned through observation how to break words down into parts so she can sound out long words... which makes almost any word consumable/readable! Isn't she AMAZING!?!? I'm such a pleased Mama!!!!