Stories by Goldie

Last week I decided to start having Goldie read 15 minutes a day to me. In WA, where Abe and Daisy went to kindergarten, their only homework was a weekly reading chart. They were supposed to read 15 mins. a day, then practice writing by filling out who they read to, what they read, and for how long.

Anyway, it seemed like being forced to follow through on having them read that young got them to be proficient readers quite quickly.
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The homework packets Goldie gets here focus more on letter writing, etc., but I really liked having Abe and Daisy do the reading, so I decided to have Goldie do it too (though it was much easier to do when it had to be turned in to their teacher).

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Yesterday I was just being silly and made these two THRILLING (and nail biting and edge of your seat) stories to add to her reading.

In turn, she composed her own stories about Bob and Ben.As you can see, she could use a little work on spacing between words, and I was very nervous when she excitedly told me to read her stories (for fear I would read them all wrong), but we made our way through them. To spare you the same difficulty, I will translate.

Bob's Bottle

Bob lost his bottle.

Bob looks for his (here she was sure she had written bottle)

Bob finds his bottle.

Oh how she thought she was funny for writing about a bottle, but just wait til you get to the punch line on her next story -- a clear parody of my previous bus story.

Ben's Bus (with a missing "s" and an unexplained "G" in the middle)

Ben goes on the bus.

The bus goes too fast.

Ben says, "Stop."

The bus says, "No."

Oh how her eyes lit up and how she clapped and laughed at her sillyness when I read her final line.

And, may I just say, that each time I have taught another of my children to read I have been freshly annoyed and frustrated with the English language. Seriously, are there no rules? Well, there are rules. We teach them all the rules and then don't follow a one of them. I took some German long ago, and I quickly discovered that even if you didn't understand the language, once you knew a few sounds, you could read it passably because things were spelled how they were said. But we have so so many words that just don't fit our own rules.

Learn the short "a" and then you get the word "tall."

Learn that an "e" at the end makes the previous vowel long and then you get, "come."

Learn that the first vowel is said when two are together and then you get all the names that end in "ie" like Goldie.

I know they learn quickly, but the first while of really having my kids read it seems I am constantly saying, "I know this looks like you should say it that way, but it is just spelled kind of funny, you actually say . . ." And the sad thing is, the way they first write things often does make more sense (like Goldie writing "says" -- SEZ).

Well, enough of that nonsense. Weren't those cute Goldie stories though!