Kaelynn and I have done a LOT of reading together this past year with simple readers that she can understand most of (she really enjoys reading from ‘real’ books rather than workbook style formats.)  She’s picked up quite a few phonics concepts that we haven’t formally taught as ‘rules’ but she still has a hard time with some of the times when a long vowel is needed instead of a short one.  As a result, we’re back tracking in the A Beka readers we just received, all the way back to 2/3rds of the way through the first grade 1 reader so that we can do some more practice with the handy new A Beka rule for long vowels that we’ve just learned.

Sigh.  Can I admit that I’m experiencing some anxiety right now?  I don’t doubt her reading abilities, and I KNOW that after we lay a strong foundation for long vowel sounds that her reading will take right off – she already knows a lot of the ‘special sounds’.  Sigh.  Sometimes I wish I was teaching Hebrew as our first language, where each character has only ONE sound.  English is a terribly complicated language to read and write, I never realized it’s true complexities until teaching my own children these basic skills of literacy.

Vent over.