DDs confidence in reading has really taken off lately. While she's been reading for a while, she's never felt confident enough to really show off her reading ability. Lately she's been reading to her brother in the car and reading signs and boxes in such. She's also only recently started referring to herself as a reader. I will miss the playtime of preK in K. We have friends who send their children to a highly structured, academic heavy Preschool that claims to have every child reading by the end of prek. It's a tiny tiny school and the preschool class is a 3year old- Kindergarten class with one teacher assigned to teach both preschool and K. I felt awful for the kids when I heard the teacher explaining how there is no free play time and that she loves how structured the day is. My heart broke for them. DDs day is loosely structured. Recess, two times with free choice between centers (art, science, books, play house, building toys, puzzles, etc.), a small group time, circle time, and now her 1:1 reading time. It's been a blessing for sure.

Surprisingly enough DDs teacher started doing DRA reading with DD this week. Yesterday Dd came home from school telling me how she went into the hall with her teacher and read a book to her. Today she said she read to the teachers aid. Her teacher said that she assessed DD at an end of K level. I'm assuming this is because they started at a K level with books and dd read them well. DD reads at about a 2nd grade level at home. Her teacher said they'll continue giving her more difficult books to assess where she's at. Dd seems to enjoy the one on one time with her teachers.

The Gospel Story Bible

Yes to tying shoes! My issue is that my DDs feet are so small that I don't usually find any with laces. And she's a lefty and I'm a righty which I've heard can make it harder to teach.

We moved from AAR-Pre to OPGTR and really enjoyed it. I couldn't justify the AAR cost and OPGTR has worked extremely wel. I did supplement with some games and activities I found on Pinterest. But only occasionally. Now that we are about 75% of the way done we just snuggle up with the book and read. It's been great.

Oops I didn't mean to make a post!

My DD is actually going to be doing afterschooling since she'll be in a Spanish immersion Kindergarten. But we plan to continue doing English language arts at home. Language Arts: AAS1 or 2. We start AAS this spring and will finish OPGTR in the next couple of months. Not sure how quickly she'll move through AAS Handwriting: the school does cursive in K so we will continue HWOT to fine tune formation, size and spacing. Math: the school does Singapore in Spanish so we will reinforce these concepts in English. Art: she has several Usborne style how to draw books and Draw Write Now.

I should have clarified. I do speak and read Spanish. I read much better than I speak, but I'm prett familiar with the Spanish phonics as far as letter pronunciation and such. I cannot roll my r though. Her teachers are all native speakers which I am excited about. It will be great for her accent. I may add in some Spanish phonics then this summer. We finish our English phonics program soon and I'm going to order the Nacho text and start going over Spanish phonics. I knew the syllables would be a different aspect since many Spanish words are two syllables at least.

She hasn't been taught in Spanish. The school is a full immersion and all of her instruction in k will be in Spanish. I was hoping to get some Spanish books to have around the house so she has them for next fall. I'm not sure I want to give her a head start in Spanish. Would a child who knows no Spanish (other than counting and some words) do well starting Spanish phonics? We're still doing English phonics (almost done) so I wouldn't mind starting Spanish this summer if it wouldn't be too tricky for her.

Dd is going into Kindy next year at a Spanish immersion school. She's reading fairly well in English, but will start over with Spanish reading. Any recommendations for quality spanish early readers? I have a few Dr. Seuss ones and Elephant and Piggie in Spanish. Our library has a large Spanish section of kids books of all levels and E books.

Is there a kindergarten planning thread? I haven't seen one yet

That's funny about your DD! DD isn't a show off either. Definiitey an introvert. And the teachers notice other abilities such as fine motor skills. Ones they all work on. Dd writes me notes while at school and they constantly praise that. I honestly don't care if she reads at school. It was more that we wouldn't that caught my attention. Well afterschool for reading and spelling as long as she needs. Probably until 3rd grade when they start doing it at school.

We do love her teacher and she is excellent. She's the reason we're at that school. But I truly think Dd just doesn't show what she can do readily. Dd will go to an immersion language school for K-8 so all English language arts from K-2 will be done at home. The school doesn't do ELA until 3rd grade. So I'm not worried about differentiation in K+ since she'll be starting over with a new language.

That's what I was thinking. It sounds like some of the kids who are reading (I believe 2 boys do as well) have been able to help read words during story time, but they're much more outgoing and one is turning 6 this spring. Dd is definitely not outgoing and doesn't show off her abilities much in group settings. She does read a lot she sees, but I'm not sure how much of it is outloud. She'll say things like "why does the cereal box say 'love grown'?" But I have no idea if she read it in her head first and then asked or asked while reading aloud. In our reading time she reads aloud

DD goes to a half day preschool program daily. It is fantastic and we love it. It's play based and they don't stress academics beyond normal preschool expectations. Dd has had the same teacher for 2 years. at the beginning of the year I let her know that Dd was reading a lot more. The teacher said they had a few readers and that she'd work with them. However Dd said they haven't done reading. She says that one boy will read occasionally, but that's all I've heard. at DDs parent teacher conference Dd brought a book she had been reading and the teacher was surprised. She had no idea Dd was reading at that level. From what I can tell, Dd is reading at an early 2nd grade level. She reads Little Bear with minimal helps and only needs help on trickier multisyllable words since our phonics program hasn't covered those yet. I honestly don't care if Dd gets reading instruction in school. We do it at home. But I found it odd her teacher had no idea that Dd could read so well. Is it pretty typical at this age not to show true ability in school?

I'm not sure. The computer version is free and my daughter just now got the hang of my laptops track pad and can play there.

It varies greatly. Out public school recommend knowing how to count to 20, recognizing numbers to 20, knowing the letters, writing their name, and similar skills. Very basic. My dd will attend a Spanish immersion school. So essentially she goes in as a blank slate. She can count some in Spanish, but not very high. She can read in English, but has no idea of Spanish phonics. She can do basic addition and subtraction, but not in Spanish. So her English skills are grade levels ahead of her Spanish skills. check out the app Teach Your Monster to Read. There's a free computer version but the iPad app is only $5 and well worth the money.

I ageee that it would help to know what your son has read so far. A few lists that I use have Charlotte's Web as a fourth grade book.

Also the word caper video from leap frog does blending too. With silent E

Someone recently commented on DDs vocabulary and her use of certain larger words. It made me wonder, how do you test a child's vocabulary? Reading level is easy to test, but I can't seem to find anything similar that details expected vocabulary by age. What makes a vocabulary higher or lower for certain ages/grades? Are there tests that would determine a child's vocabulary?

That is hysterical! And fantastic. I love when they get an idea in their heads and take off with it. It is so fun to watch! My two are stereotypically boy and girl. My girl would decorate and do crafts forever and sounds a lot like your daughter. Whereas my son has very little interested in crafting. He's only 3, but at that age my daughter loved crafts and cooking. Mine also learn differently. My daughter seems to be somewhat of a traditional student whereas my son is one who seems to learn through osmosis and picking things up from his environment. I'm glad she's loving AAR. I plan to start AAS1 with my 5 year old soon and I'm looking forward to it. We LOVE all about learning press. We did the pre reading level and switched to Ordinary Parents Guide for our phonics lessons. But I'm looking forward to using their spelling program. And as far as regular preschool academics, I think your daughter sounds like she is excelling. My daughter goes to half day public preschool. They do not learn reading. It's a lot of phonemic awareness. Rhyming, letter sounds, identifying sounds, and such. I'm not even sure how much writing they do there. It is completely play based which I love and appreciate for these early years. We do reading and writing at home. And some math too. So your daughter is way ahead of the game if we're comparing to preschool programs! Now private preschools that claim to teach reading, I honestly don't trust them. While some preschoolers can read, it's definitely not the norm or something teachers should expect.

My 5 year old only grows about a shoe size a year. She's a size 9 at 5.

I'm INFJ So far we've used: Ordinary Parents Guide to teaching Reading. I like the open and go straight forward approach. HWOT I plan to start AAS We do lots of reading Math games Self-directed crafts. Dd does a lot of Drawing and creating on her own.

We do snuggle nightly to read and I love it. It's my favorite time. Especially now that she says "I just love reading and want to read more!" We've decided to do two lessons a day as well. Since we're close to the finish, I made a chart for her to track how many lessons she has left. We have a mommy daughter date planned for when she finishes. So she's motivated to do two a day! I've been adjusting them too. So today I had her read the word list from one lesson and then do the entire next lesson. It seems that most of the r-changed vowel rules are covered in two lessons each. So AR had two lessons dedicated to the concept. It definitely seems like too much review for us right now. I'm guessing we will slow back down with multisyllable words.

My daughter is 5 too. We are on track to finish our phonics curriculum (Ordinary Parents Guide to Teaching Reading) in a few months. I plan to start AAS1 next month or so. She's reading fairly well and by the end of OPG she'll be decoding at a 4th grade level. I don't think there's any rush since he's only in K. Maybe start it in the fall for 1st?