Julia's Open House

The Open House for Julia's school was a few weeks ago. Wally was unable to get away from work (it was at 1pm) so I went by myself. Her teacher, Mrs. Weight, went over the curriculum and rules. She mentioned that since Kindergarten is optional here, some of the kids have never even been in a classroom environment before now. She said she only has three readers, and I felt very proud because I knew Julia was one of them. Mrs. Weight sends home a paper with a paragraph on it, along with some word family words and a few fill in the blank sentences. Julia is to practice reading it to us every night, and then on Mondays and Wednesdays she reads whichever paper she's on to Mrs. Weight...if she "passes" the reading with 80% accuracy, she gets the next paper in the series. I like that she's not forced to stay on the same level as the class or even as a reading group. She's working at her own pace and moving along pretty fast!

Wally went to lunch with Julia on Friday and stopped in to see the teacher. It was the first chance we'd had to touch base with her since this reading program began (it began at the time of the Open House) and she assured Wally that Julia is one of her top three readers and is doing very well. She told him that she has papers in this reading program up to the 3rd grade level and she expects Julia to be reading at that level by the end of the school year. We're so proud of her! She's already reading anything she can get her hands on. I'm teaching her how to break bigger words down into smaller words and how to sound them out piece by piece. She read the word "crunching" the other day by sounding out "crun" then "ch" and adding "ing" to the end. Otherwise when she sees the "ch" in the middle and starts making the "c" (hard c) sound instead of recognizing "ch" as a blend. I give her reminders when she's sounding out unfamiliar words like "What sound does 'ou' make?" and then she can sound out "loud." She's doing really well.

Here are a few pics of her work that was hanging around her classroom that day.