What has Scout been doing?

Scout and I are sick today - not fun.

I've just got the strength to share a Scout story. We discovered this week he can READ 4 words (and who knows what else). Yes, I have tested it a few times as I was flabbergasted.

They are: Sugar, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday.

Anyone guess how my 25 month old picked up those words?

Peter and Jane

As promised, a post on this learner reader system.

I learnt to read using Peter and Jane. It is a system of 36 books, 3 per level, which aim to introduce children to the most common words of the English language. Strikingly, 100 words account for 1/2 the words used, and 300 for 3/4. Each level adds new words.

It is a method currently out of favour, as it in the main uses whole word recognition (though a 1/3 of the books use phonics) as opposed to the more fashionable phonics - see here for a discussion of this - though it seems now a combination of phonics and whole language is popular. Whole language seems to be more effective for children from high literacy households or with natural verbal gifting.

Sparky, who has learnt to read almost by himself, seems to favour whole word recognition and get frustrated with phonics, so I decided to use the readers I used, though also doing some phonics. I enjoyed these readers as I liked being able to go up levels, and I thought this would motivate Sparky as well.

The thing is, though, that the readers were written in the 1960s, and although revised in the 70s, still have a very old fashioned air to them. So, for instance, Peter plays ball and Jane stands by and watches. I have found myself having to explain to Sparky that when these books were written people had some funny ideas about what boys and girls could do but now we know differently. I guess he is learning to read critically already!

The picture is of some Peter and Jane illustrations, taken from http://www.theweeweb.co.uk/ a website all about Ladybird books - the publisher of this series.

So, how did you learn to read?

a week is a long time in blogland

Well, sorry I haven't blogged for a week - it's been busy! Why? Sparky starting preschool, for one thing. I have photos, but haven't got round to loading to computer....

Good thing last week I sent myself a weekly blog task of appreciating the week that was, or I might not be blogging now.

This week:
1. Sparky having the dream preschool start. No tears, no dramas, and the teacher says he is happy and confident. Ah bliss.
2. Sparky confident at his second swimming lesson - what made this even better was that he afterwards told me that he was a little scared, but that he was Ok and he enjoyed it. So it wasn't fearlessness, but good fear coping strategies.
3. Spending time with Owl while Sparky at preschool. As a consequence, or at least it seemed that way to me, Owl seemed to develop by leaps and bounds this week - he nods for yes, shakes for no, and said lots more words. Very helpful, though still screams for drink.
4. getting more on top of the housework, because of 1.
5. reading lots more lately - I am currently reading the memoirs of Canon SB Babbage which fills you in on the anglican scene in Oz last century - interesting (but then I really like Trollope too, in particular the barsetshire chronicles) - perhaps more interesting to me too because I am related by marriage to him, as well as being a past recipient of a prize named after him!

favourite books

my fave books - a non definitive list as I kept putting off publishing this list in case I had forgotten something - so a work in progress.

classics
love austen. fave now is pride and prejudice - right balance of light and shade. as kid loved mansfield park as i identified with fanny with more self insight now, i am much more like elizabeth...
barchester towers series by trollope - just like church politics today. a real lesson in godliness not being which party you belong to, rather whether you are like jesus - or in this series like the warden.

literary
love AS Byatt. favourite is possession. very literary without being all pretension no plot.

fantasy
lord of the rings - see title of blog. very small person and mammoth task.

sci fi
native tongue series by suzette h elgin. sees women acheive liberation through their own language.

childhood faves -
all lm montgomery - favourite anne of the island and rilla of ingleside - the romance ones!
laura ingalls wilder - my fave was these happy golden years also the romance one...
narnia series
noel streatfield books such as ballet shoes

poetry
wb yeats
robert frost

light read
hornblower - swashbuckling - but with an insecure hero.

christian
bible - fave book in that philippians
prayer by richard foster - see chapter on prayer of tears.
wounded healer -henri nouwen - through our wounds we heal
crucified god - jurgen moltmann - theodicy of the cross.

recent faves
the kite runner - Khaled Hosseini - afghanistan from the inside and outside.
gilead - marilynne robinson - unexpectedly uplifting

future biography

I have just been reading a biog of Jane Austen. (I finished it! wonders will never cease) I was thinking - how are biographers going to cope these days when we don't write letters - Austen wrote multitudes of long letters to lots of people - we therefore often can construct where she was , what she was doing and thinking at any time. Then I realised - well its not the same - but the blog may fill part of the hole left by the abandon of epistolary culture. In which case, at this point my biog is looking sadly lacklustre.