The Farmhouse Adventures: January 2015

So I started this post a LONG time ago (try September), but due to being on my feet all day with LIFE, I just did not get a chance to finish it!

I had meant to announce it when it happened, it being something we were kind of not expecting, at that moment, anyway. And so, it was exciting. So without further adieu....

Riley is a reader and a speller!!

Sometime back in August of last year, this awesome little girl read her first book ever by herself - "Pout-Pout Fish" by Deborah Diesen. Actually read it, not just memorized it, like pretty much the rest of her book collection. It had many of her known sight words, but also some words that she was finally confident enough to sound out and even a few that used blends, like "sm" for smile. She read it, then read it to her brother, then read it again. What an amazing thing to see the joy on her face as she realized her accomplishment. It was just as exciting as a first step, or a first word!

A few days later, she sounded out the word "H-u-g" at bedtime, and just a few days after that, she sounded out "M-o-o-n" using her knowledge of two o's making the "ooooh" sound. From there, she took off, wanting to try to spell something new every day, writing out words, writing (and sometimes mailing) letters to family and friends. Of her own accord, because, in opposition of what some may think, we do not push her to do any of this. We have learned, over time, that when our kids do things that are "ahead" of the norm, that they can't be discussed openly in public, or at the playground, or to the other preschool Moms last year, or certainly not to any other parents who have same-aged kids, because of course, we're bragging, and we MUST be pushing our children, and never letting them play, and probably strapping them to torture chairs and injecting knowledge into them.

It has seriously been her heart's desire to learn to read for as long as we can remember, she has said so herself so many times. I've mentioned before how her favorite "toy" has always been a book. As an infant, she was happiest on someone's lap with book after book after book. It didn't matter if you repeated the same book 80 times, or read her 80 different books, just as long as you were reading. Still as a statue she'd sit and listen attentively.

Baby Riley would even steal mail to "read!"

Content as can be.

Daddy reading to 1 yr old Riley

By 6 months, we'd ask her where things were in her favorite books, and she'd point to them. By 8 months, she was saying the names of the things we pointed to. She never seemed to lose interest (although I did.... lol!) Around that time, I started babysitting for 2 other babes, who were 3 months older and 2 months younger than Riley, respectively, so I got a little busier and couldn't read as many books to her as I previously could, so she learned to sit and "read" herself. She'd page through each book, never skipping a page, and shortly after her 1st birthday she would "read" out loud, as she had memorized parts of her faves. Any time we needed to keep her busy, just add books. Restaurant? No problem. She'd happily read the same 4 books over and over. Mom needs a shower? No problem. Sit Riley on the floor surrounded by books. She never wandered off, not once. Garden needs weeding? No problem! Sit Riley in grass with books. At the hospital for unknown respiratory issues? Just bring books and she is the best behaved kid there. It worked every time. Old books, new books, it did not matter.

Roger and I loved to listen to her on the monitor at bedtime, after we'd read her books and left the room she would read to herself, 10 or so books in a row, fully memorized and correct every time, until she fell asleep. Her memorization was also so good that if it was bedtime and say, Mom or Dad didn't feel well and tried to skip a word, a line, or a page in the book they were reading, she'd catch us and correct us.

Age 2 was frustrating for her. She was learning sight words after expressing her desire to learn some of Indigo's kindergarten words. She'd ask for more and more, saying she just wanted to learn how to read! By now, she had an awareness that bigger kids could read new books on their own, and that she was stuck with the books that someone had already read to her. RJ was born and it got a little hectic in here, and I'll be the first to admit that this exhausted Mommy probably read to her even less. But books were still her favorite, can still keep her occupied everywhere we went...

From age 3 to 4 we backed off of sight words for a little bit. The wee Man-child began to crawl just 6 short months into his life, and then to walk at 9 months, and proved to be explicitly different from his siblings in all kinds of ways that required extra parental attention. Riley had learned about 50 sight words prior to turning 3, and practiced finding those words in the books she had. As many people know, sight words are not reading, although they're an important part of learning to read. Sight Words are rote memorization of words that tend to not follow the "rules" of the letter sounds. RJ, somewhere in the middle of age 1, was eventually not as needy as when he was smaller, and he was beginning to be able to sit still for a book or two himself, so we as a family increased our reading together. Chase and Indy also read to Riley a lot.

As her 4th birthday approached, she asked for sight words again and so we started where we'd left off - the last set of Primer words. We use the Dolch Word Lists from here, they offer Pre-Primer, Primer, 1st and 2nd Grade lists. She also started asking A LOT of questions about letter sounds within words, how to spell things, etc. This was often while we're driving. It's totally fine with me when we turn the music down and have great conversation. One day, she went through the whole alphabet, saying the proper letter sounds for each. She needed correction for a few, mostly those tricky vowel sounds. While this was sometimes boring for me, and maybe not what I wanted to be doing, I certainly didn't think it fair to deny her.

In July, she turned 4. For a while before, we had had a little routine where she would be sad because I was done reading at bedtime. So I would ask for a "kiss and a bug" or some other word that rhymed with "hug." This would always make her giggle. I'd guess many wrong rhyming words, but she would eventually have to give me the answer. "That's 'cuz I'm smarter than you, Mom," she'd say. Redirection successful, we'd kiss, hug, and off I'd go. She continued to read every night with her reading light on (ikea janso clamp light) until she fell asleep, with books piled on top of her.

Somewhere in late August, I grew tired of the rhyming game. She could rhyme any word you gave her, and we'd been working on blends, since she had asked me why Chase's name didn't start with the "C" sound like it should, she said. So one night I told her I wanted "a kiss and a ...." "Wait!! Can you SPELL that word... hmmmm....", I said. And that's how it happened.

I used to tease Roger about how "easy" of a baby and toddler Riley was, I wanted to make sure he really appreciated that not all kids were like her. (And boy did he get a dose of something different with his son....). We read to her every day, from the day she was born, and I took her to infant storytime for the first time when she was just 4 days old. But we mostly did that with the other kids, too, and for the record, it doesn't always mean you're going to get a kid who loves to sit and read. It's still a wonderful way to connect with your child and build the brain skills that go along with listening to words and hearing stories.

A day or so after her first spell, we went out to look at the Moon. On a whim, I asked her how to spell it. She totally got it right. "Two O's like in Zoo, Mom." And after that, it's history. She starting getting pieces of paper, and writing words down every day. She gets out Bananagrams to play with the pieces and turn "cat" into "sat." She cracks herself up by saying, "Hey, Mom, I'm going to spell a color.... G - R - E - E - E - E - E - E - E....." and then she just loses it with laughter as she says, "Greeeeeeeeeeee" over and over until we're both dying with laughter and can't breathe anymore. She impresses me every day. And it's not even like I'm doing a whole lot of teaching, at least, not in the sit-down-and-let's-go-over-this way. I teach, yes, but it's in the moment. When it comes up. As it's happening. Or when she asks me.

Reading to RJ

A friend asked me, "How do you teach a kid to read?" And there's no short answer. For Riley, it has a lot to do with what I mentioned above about who she is and what her first years were like. It's our availability as parents to read to her daily, it's her desire combined with the language and vocabulary we use with our kids, it's our stance that books are unconditional, that reading time with Mom & Dad can never be taken away as punishment, no matter how bad of a day they've had, it's the sheer number of books in our house (and on the couch, and the floor, and the kitchen table....) plus the love they get on a daily basis and minus the excessive TV and video game time that we see in homes with young children all around us.

This is just what's next to her bed. We are overflowing with books.

But if I had to give a short answer, say, to a new Mom who was embarking on her new journey as being in charge of a small, stinky, helpless human being with a giant sponge of a brain - I'd say, "Read out aloud. Every Day." That's the short answer.

And perhaps, if all lines up, in a few short years, you'll get your own "Hug and Moon."

Before we get waayyy ahead of ourselves here... on this 8th day of January, let's review that whirlwind called "December."

Well, wait a minute. We missed November.

Ok, let's do it all:

We went to a Homeschooler's Day Out at a YMCA Camp center. We did "Protect the Egg" contests, made soft pretzels, dipped candles, and played all kinds of outdoor games. Terribly good fun!

This kid slept in shopping carts all over town, as usual. This makes old ladies REALLY NERVOUS. Just so you know. They have to touch him to make sure he's alive.

Our violinist practiced.

Riley gave thanks, for all kinds of things.

On Thanksgiving, we made and dropped off food for our local police department, to give back instead of just going and stuffing ourselves and then sitting around saying, "Why did I eat ALL THAT??" We made a Thanksgiving sandwich with all the parts, so that the officers could make a quick grab-n-go if they needed to. The kids also wrote thank you letters to them.

We stopped by a friend's house to help her carry furniture, after our trip to the police department. When she found out we didn't have dinner plans, she invited us back. Here's the Rogers eating. Or maybe that's Princess Roger? We don't know, but he loved that crown. It was pleasant to attend someone else's Thanksgiving for once and experience how a different family does it.

The "Store" made it's way out from the dust and rubble of the basement (where it lived during construction) and into the girls' new room. Children near and far (ok, fine, just mine, the neighbor's and some cousins) had store fun for hours. They primarily sell food, and guns. Of course.

We wrote letters to Santa, and Santa wrote back!

The day after Thanksgiving is for the tree. But we don't dare take the train table down!

Obligatory finished tree pic.

The Elf also returns on Thanksgiving night. Tricker made sure to thrill the children and annoy the parents, as he is skilled at doing.

One day, we thought we had lost RJ somewhere in the house. Usually, if you can't see him, you just yell and ask him if he's alright. He answers back, "Yeah!" right away. Well, this day, he didn't answer at all, so we all started running through the house, to the bathtubs and exit doors and any other potentially-problematic places. Instead, he had found the iPad next to Dad's side of the bed, and figured out how to watch videos on PBS kids, and was lying under a blanket in bed doing so. He knew better than to identify his position!

RJ lines up his two favorite books right before he falls asleep. Books are super important at this house!

We continue to use this "level" system-based chart for behaviors. It also determines what one is eligible for - for instance, if you're on Orange or Red, and something fun is going on, like playing outside with friends, or having ice cream for dessert, you miss out.