Wednesday, January 7, 2009

Dick and Jane

You can tell your kids are not only reading, but comprehending, when they begin to realize just how dorky basal readers really are.

We do the vast majority of our reading from REAL books, but I sometimes have Gunnar read aloud from a set of basal readers I was given, because the content is related to different reading strategies we’re working on.

The books are chock-full of exciting, scintillating stories like, “The Fat Cat”, “The Red Hen”, “Slice the Cake!”, and “The Old Lamp”. (Eyes rolling.)

Today he read the engrossing tale of “Wade’s Ice Cubes”.

Wade made ice cubes.
He will use them in his glass.
He is sure that the ice cubes will make his drink cold.

At this point, even Gunnar couldn’t take any more. He looked at me, raised one eyebrow, and said, “Gee… do ya think?”

Yeah. I think we're ready to move on.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

For some reason this hit me funny and I laughed out loud. Ha ha!

Yeah, time to move on.

Tina Marie said...

AWESOME!!! The joy of homeschooling is that if he had said that in "real" school, they would have suspended him for being a smart alec...completely overlooking his comprehension and frustration at the obvious lamitude in that book (I made that word up).

leah said...

"Lamitude." I like it! Definitely time to move on! The great thing about home schooling is that you can move at the rate of the child instead of holding him back. Our kids will most likely go to public school, but I can see the appeal of having a designer curriculum for each child!

Herding Grasshoppers said...

Trust an English teacher to make up a word like "lamitude" :0)

The next day, for reading, he brought his own book- "Smelly Old History" (one of a series of scratch-n-sniff history books.)

Leah... my older boys were in public school through 4th and 2nd grade. There's a part of me that wishes I had homeschooled all along, but - truly - I don't think that's what God had for us those years.

God has a plan for you and your boys, and I know you're listening :0)

The dB family said...

Hmmm! Maybe I should put my learning to read gal in these books. We're still reading about swimming on the moon with moon cows. Isn't it fun when they let you know they're ready to move on!

Unknown said...

Oh, I never like those books! I had a school-teacher-friend recommend to me that I buy a whole bunch of those for my kids. BLECHHHHH. I usually just grab a section of them at the library, read them until we puke, and then move on.