Allison Reads!

This is waaaaaay past due......

You may remember a few years ago when we talked about teaching Alex to read using a great home teaching method. If not, you can read about it here. Well, of course, over last year we took Allison through the same curriculum. We began in early 2008, and had completed about 80% of the lessons by the time we made our move to Ohio in late June. By the time a child is to the point where Allison was at that time, they are reading at a very advanced first grade level. Because of that, sometimes it is difficult to finish the lessons, since the child now knows how to read. During and after our move, our lives became hectic, and since Allison was already reading, I shelved the book for awhile. However, it was important to us that she finish the lessons. Later in the fall, we revisited the book to finish the last 20 lessons. Allison had lost motivation by that point, and we had a few arguments during our lessons. In order to encourage her to keep with it, I bought her a new outfit and hung it in the kitchen. I told her she could have the outfit (in the picture) when we finished lesson #100. Well, she was motivated! We finished 20 lessons in about 6 days! This was close to 2 hours of reading per day for her. We completed our last lesson the Monday before Thanksgiving. She was eager to wear her new outfit to school before her Thanksgiving break!

Since then her reading has continued to improve greatly. It's quite impressive. She has a natural sing-songy tone to her voice, so her expression when she reads out loud is amazing, far above average for most primary students.

Way to go, Allison!