An Interesting Discovery
I hesitated to write about this, but you know, it’s my blog and I’ll brag if I want to!
A couple of days ago, I mentioned that my children read above grade level, but I wasn’t sure exactly at what level. Curiosity got the best of me and I found a free online reading assessment. I had Pumpkin Girl go first. Holy Hallowed Halls of Academia, Batman! The girl reads at a 3rd grade level! Remember, she is only 5 1/2. So I wondered about Boo. Same thing, he also reads at a 3rd grade level. Not as shocking, but impressive nontheless (is that one word or three?)
So what’s an overachieving mom to do?
I will continue to keep them at “grade level” for language arts. They may be strong readers, but they need to keep grammar, dictation, and spelling at K and 2. But how do I encourage their reading skills to improve, not stagnate? The problem is that 3rd/4th grade level readers will be way beyond them in terms of content. What to do, what to do? I posed the question over at the Sonlight Forums and I have already received some good advice. I got some good resources, book and author suggestions and this one key piece of advice: stick to children’s books written pre-1960. Anything newer could have subject matter that is too much for my young brood. It also occurred to me to look into the readers sold in my Catholic homeschool catalog. There were some good possibilities there, too. In a day or two, I will gather the resources and suggestions and post them here to my blog.
You know, this really shouldn’t surprise me much, given how much Philip and I both love books. I remember very clearly telling my 2nd grade teacher that I had just finished reading Little House On the Prairie. She said, “You mean your mom read it to you?” and I said, “No, I read it myself.” After that, on library day, I was allowed to go into the “big library” which was for 3rd graders and up. My first time there was amazing. I was bit timid at first, seeing all the stacks, but I got over it and never looked back.
