Rachael continues to read

It's really interesting to me to see how Rachael's learning to read.

We got an audio disc of Junie B, First Grader: Toothless Wonder and Rachael has been listening to it every day.

Then she asked me to get the book itself, and we went to pick it up today.

Rachael sat in the car and read it on the way home. And she sat at lunch when we got home and read it. And then she had to go to dance class. I think she had gotten to Chapter Three by that point.

Now, a lot of people would say, "Well yeah, but isn't that cheating? She's heard the story over and over, so she's not really reading!"

But to me that's what's so cool: it's like she's learning to read by going in the back door. Since she knows the words and the story and even the tone and rhythm, she's able to read it .... and then she learns all about words and spelling and phonics, instead of the other way around.

She also can read it the way a person would actually tell the story, which I think is huge, as opposed to that halted, stammering, robotic way that a lot of people much older than her often sound like when they're reading.