Reader-Roo We're Proud of You

*Warning: if shameless bragging and gushy over-squishiness makes you uncomfortable, you should probably stop reading now. I am not going to be telling you how you should change your life so your kids can be perfect and amazing like mine, though, so that's a plus. =) *

This is the book Bree read, all by herself, cover to cover, last night.

She's been sounding out words for a while (like a year), but in the last couple of weeks, she's just taken off with her word decoding and stamina. Really, with Bree it's all about stamina and not getting overwhelmed by seeing more than five words on a page. She'll still sometimes get stuck, or mix up lower case Bs and Ds, and will occasionally freak out mid-sentence: "I don't GET it! This doesn't make ANY SENSE! This book is STUPID." *throw book across room, or self across bed.*

Ah, daughters.

Anyway, she did this, and we're super duper extra proud of her! We made a big huge deal of it at home and then on the way to school* we talked about how she should tell her teacher and aide because they'd be so proud of her. Carly suggested Bree tell Dr. Mitchell their sweet principal, then we went through a list of all the grownups at school who would be SO proud of her for reading a book all the way through all by herself. So then Bree got really shy and asked Carly to tell the lady at the drop off door...

It was so sweet! They walk about thirty feet to the doors, so I couldn't hear anything, but I saw Carly point at Bree and saw the teacher's face light up as she leaned down to high-five Bree. Cool moment! And, to be honest here, I feel a little like a parenting genius because I think this kind of external positive feedback loop is just what Bree needs.

So yay!


*We are driving to school to avoid The Nine Year Old Friend With An iPhone And An Unlimited Data Plan who, if you know me in real life, you have no doubt already heard about. The friend is sweet. Her unfiltered YouTube is not. Plus, Carly got some Ns on her card in the areas of time management, listening and following instructions, and completing classwork, and we're hoping that a more structured and supervised morning will help her enter the day focused and ready to do the important work of learning.*