More happens when you leave it alone

Lyddie and I haven’t done any reading practice for weeks. Peter and Jane have been abandoned on the sideboard since she lost interest in them back then. I started getting a bit concerned this week, thinking the development of her reading skill might be stagnating, especially since she’s been really enjoying hearing me read to [...]

I confess

I have done something that I never thought I would do, in a million years.
I have bought some components of.. a proprietary reading scheme.
Not only that. It’s the very same reading scheme (Oxford Reading Tree) as the older three were made to use in school and quite similar to the one I was [...]

“How do you know when you can read?”

Lyddie (nearly 7) asked me this last week, and I thought it a fascinating question. I answered with words to the effect of: “I think it’s when written words start making sense – when you can tell what they’re saying. Is that what you meant?”
She said: “Sort of… but what about when only some of [...]

Bedtime reading and the history of inventions

The baby and I are currently having sections of this book read to us by Lyddie every evening:

It’s not something we could plan for, as Mr Badman seems to think we should be able to.

If I tried to insist that she did such a thing, Lyddie would be sure to resist. She’d close the book [...]

Reading again

Lyddie wants to play some of her favourite computer games – online. This means she needs to be able to interact with the other players, which means she needs to be able to read everything they’re saying to her.
“So help me learn then,” she said.
“I will then,” I replied.
We started pulling books [...]