Reading Rascal

Well, that's the name of the book he's reading, but it's an apt name for him, too.  Jesse entered into fluency in the beginning of this year, and now I would say he's avid.  He turned 8 in September and we had absolutely no reading lessons until the summer he turned 6.  We made sure he knew his letters and their sounds and then I used The Ordinary Parent's Guide to Teaching Reading by Jessie Wise and Sara Buffington.  I liked this book and will use it with James hopefully beginning this summer (he just turned 6).  It is a good mix of phonics and sight words, it's easy to use and enjoyable for the child.  It was recommended by my friend Kelly.  Jesse is just now finishing the last several lessons of this book which teach mulitple syllable words and words with prefixes and suffixes.  It's really teaching you how to read words you don't know.  We took a long break from using the text when he reached what I called fluency and I just let him read and read and read.  We picked a particular time of day and I gave him a time limit that he had to read and gradually increased the time to 30 minutes every day.  He goes well past 30 minutes and sometimes even an hour without noticing now and some weeks ago I noticed has begun to read silently.  I have kept a list of books that he has read and he likes seeing the list grow.  Today he finished Friska, My Friend by Patricia St. John and asked if he could read Rascal by Sterling North.  (He has his eyes on a whole shelf full of our classic books and has begun a list of those he wants to read).  Jonathan recently finished reading this book for his Field Biology class and Jesse had heard several discussions about the book.  I haven't read it, and wasn't certain how he would do - the text is smaller, more words per page, no pictures, etc.  But he read the first chapter no problem and now I'll get to listen to this book all over again.  He has begun reading some of his history books for himself, and tonight read our advent passage from Exodus without stumbling over 'Levite', 'bulrushes' or 'pharoah'.  I would call him a reading Rascal indeed!