Reading Level Assessment

I just have to share this here.  A relative just posted a picture of a reading level certificate that her son received at school.  I realized I have never tested Monkey to see what level he is at, and I got curious.  I did a quick search and found a simple online test, which consisted of multiple lists of words of increasing difficulty.  You just have the kid read the lists until they get too difficult.  I called him over and said, hey, read these words for me... and now read these... okay read these... and so on.  The result was level 48, which equals fourth grade, in the eighth month.  So he's at the end of second grade and is testing at the end of fourth grade, or roughly two grade levels ahead.  So I guess I must be doing something right!  I mean, I knew he was doing fine, and I'm sure this simple test is not as comprehensive as a thorough evaluation done by a teacher, but it gives me a sense of encouragement to get a general idea of where he's at.  Yay!

Horton Hears a Who

Horton Hears a Who is one of our very favorite stories.  We have read it so often that we all have it pretty much memorized.  I can stop reading halfway through any line and the boys can finish it.  I'm just sharing this crummy cell phone video of it because it makes me smile.  :)

A little confirmation that something is working here... and some thoughts on technology.

Just a small, special moment that I want to remember:  last night at bedtime, as we sat down for storytime and I started to read, Monkey took the book from my hands and took over.  He read The. Whole. Thing.  That's right, my boy read his little brother a bedtime story last night, while I just sat back and watched with a glowing heart.

This was especially exciting to me because lately, Monkey has been very reluctant to do any reading. I have backed off and waited for him to be ready, because my goal for my kids is that I want them to love reading as much as I do, and I don't want it to ever feel like a painful chore.  He was very excited about sounding out words and learning to read for a while, but then he suddenly began resisting.  Maybe I started putting too much pressure on him, or perhaps I was correcting him too quickly when he would made a mistake, instead of giving him time to figure it out on his own.  Occasionally over the past few weeks though, he has been jumping in and reading a few lines of whatever I'm reading aloud - and he is constantly surprising me by knowing many words (and some are big words!) that I didn't think he knew.

I think some combination of watching/listening as I read aloud, and also playing video games has sparked this seemingly spontaneous learning.  After much internal struggle in trying to decide how technology should be handled in our home, right now I do not put limits on screen time, but I DO limit what he *does* with his screen time.  Meaning, I monitor what tv shows and movies he watches and what kind of games he plays, but he is free to choose what to play or watch within the approved selections, and how long to do so.  Some days he spends a lot of time playing on the computer, and some days he doesn't.  But on those days that he does, I do not think it's wasted time.  This is just a format that "toys" have evolved into, IMO, and I think there is a great deal of learning happening during this kind of play.  He often chooses educational games - for example, those on www.pbskids.org and www.coolmath.org.  But even in games that are not specifically educational in purpose, there is still value.  Besides motivating learning to read in order to navigate menus and learn intructions for how to play a game, he is also learning basic logic - what steps need to be taken to solve a certain problem (i.e. get past a difficult level) and the satisfaction one gets for solving a tough problem on their own.  He learns how to deal with frustration when he doesn't succeed right away, and he definitely practices persistence and keeps trying over and over until he figures out the solution.

I am constantly reading conflicting articles about this subject, and you can find many on both sides of it.  So far, I have found the pro-technology side of the argument to be more compelling.  I think technology gives us amazing tools to make learning interactive and FUN, and I think people fear it unnecessarily.  Just because it's relatively "new" to the educational scene doesn't make it a bad thing.

Here's a list of links I've bookmarked over the past year or so, that I've found particularly thought-provoking:

No Thank You, We'll Stay Plugged

TED Talk - Jane McGonigal: Gaming Can Make A Better World

TED Talk - Gabe Zichermann:  How Games Make Kids Smarter

Limiting Video Games is Delusional

Video Games:  An Hour a Day is Key to Success at Life

Surprising Things Parents Should Know About Video Games

The Many Benefits for Children Playing Video Games

Value and Uses of TV for Unschoolers

Benefits of Video Games

A final thought, which came to me as I was thinking about this one day:  I wouldn't buy a kid a toy car and then say, "Ok, you can only play with this toy for one hour a day, and then I'm going to take it away."  That seems silly, right?  Well, I think the same thing applies to technology-based "toys" too.

I welcome any thoughts from anyone on both sides of this issue.  How do you handle technology use in your home?

Random stuff we've been up to... (getting caught up)

This is a rather long and photo-heavy post, but it's all of this random "stuff" I've been meaning to post about, so I am just gonna throw it all out there and finally get caught up.  A photo-purge, if you will.  So what have we been up to...?

Doing some math, aka playing with Inchimals.  Love these!

A little geography play with the Tag Map.  Monkey got this for his birthday, but Bug is much more into it.  Go figure.

An idea found via Pinterest - glow sticks in the bathtub.  It was a big hit!

Bug's favorite pastime - driving cars on the bookshelf/window seat.  I found this awesome "road tape" - so simple and fun!

My poor, "unsocialized homeschooler", getting picked up for a go-cart ride by B, a friend from the neighborhood.

Monkey is still reluctant to practice writing, but we have hit on a great way to practice written communication without pen and paper - texting!  He loves sending texts to Dad and Grandma.  I let him try to work out what to say and how to spell things on his own, just giving him hints when asked for help.

Bug, trying to homeschool the dog.  "Look Noodle, that's a kitty."

A delicious lesson about fractions!

Books and randomness...

I took these pictures a couple weeks ago, intending to document the book finds we came across in September:

Here are some library finds (all inspired by recommendations on various blogs I follow)...

And some yard sale finds...

And the current top favorites in our house. These are the books I have to read over and over and over. The Spanish book in the middle is actually Bug's favorite. He brings it to me, begging me to read it all the time, telling me "Different Book!" because he knows there is something different about it.

And of course, some library books for Mama (and Daddy), too.

These I received from Ohio's Department of Natural Resources. Educators can request free materials from them, and I got Field Guides to: Birds (+CD of bird songs), Reptiles, and Dragonflies and Damselflies. If you're not in Ohio, check with your state's Dept. of Natural Resources and see if they offer similar goodies for you. Did I mention they were FREE?

Monkeyman: Hey Mom, where are the wooden spoons? Me: Whyyyyy...? Yeah, we're looking into getting drum lessons for this guy. Oh, did I mention I had a migraine on this day? Yet I still had to smile at his delight while doing this.

Photo courtesy: Monkey

Happy guy Bug. He was blowing in the straw and making his milkshake erupt all over him. I figured he was already a mess, and he was quite enjoying himself so I let him continue while I took pics.

Oh, and one more random nugget: last night I was perusing an online microscope supplier's website, and my husband came in the room and saw the scope I happened to be looking at and said "Oooh! I want that! I wanna play with it!" It just amused me because I feel exactly the same way - it's always nice to see that we're on the same page!

Update + random product reviews

Well I haven't had much to say in the past week or two (or much time to write), but surely this picture is worth at least a thousand words:

Bug has been saying new words like crazy lately - like a dozen a day some days. He has also started showing interest in the potty and will occasionally demand "SIT POTTY!" although he hasn't actually done anything there yet, as far as I can tell. BTW, shown in this picture is my favorite product at Home Depot (although I couldn't find it on their site): it's a regular toilet seat with a potty seat built in, that is nested in the lid and held closed by a magnet. We tried several potty seats and potty chairs with Monkeyman but this was the best solution. It doesn't take up any extra space in the bathroom and it looks like a regular grown-up seat so the little ones feel secure but also feel like "big kids" too.

In the past two weeks, we've:

• gone hiking at three different parks
• started working on a bit of memorization: the Pledge of Allegiance, and our address & phone number. I have them taped on the dining room wall and we recite every morning. When he knows them by heart, I'll put something else up there for him to work on memorizing.
• started working on some basic addition and skip counting
• studied earthquakes and hurricanes (aka current events)

• done LOTS of reading

• tried out some new toys - Wedgits blocks. At first I was disappointed because I didn't realize I'd ordered the "mini" size but they are great fun to play with & can be stacked in all kinds of interesting ways. Monkeyman is diggin em!)

• built a fun robot costume out of boxes just for kicks

• investigated all kinds of things with this:

...and may I say that no homeschool home should be without one! It's a pocket microscope, very simple and low-tech. You can find a similar, but better, one at Timberdoodle.com, or other online retailers. (Note: the one pictured is actually mine from when I was a kid. I had ordered one from Amazon a long time ago because I couldn't find my old one, and then of course, I found it. The old one works MUCH better than the new one - the image is always blurred with the new one. Not sure if it was just a fluke or if they're all junk, but just in case, DON'T get this one from Amazon.com.) Anyways, it's not super powerful, but 30x is enough to give you a very different perspective on things. We have examined clothes, carpet, the countertop, newspapers, money, the computer screen, skin, hair, fingernails... and tonight we compared Monkeyman's temporary tattoo with Shane's and my real ones. It was especially interesting to compare Shane's and mine because his is over a decade old and mine are just a few months old. Mine definitely looked a bit sharper.

Ooh, and tonight at bedtime, Monkeyman surprised me by reciting the names of the planets, which he picked up from this amazing CD, which I reviewed recently. We have been listening to it nonstop every time we go somewhere in the car.

I just turned the calendar to September today and it is covered in writing. We have lots of interesting things going on this month: an overnight trip to Kalahari (water park), our annual trip to the county fair, two homeschool group field trips (a canal boat ride and a visit to a pumpkin patch), and two or three other informal homeschool gatherings, as well as a couple of family gatherings as well. Fun stuff ahead!

Learning to Read

Max learned the alphabet when he was 2, thanks to his obsession with stop signs and other traffic signs. He first learned "S-T-O-P" and then badgered us to identify any other letters he came across until he knew them all. He then gradually learned both his lower-case letters and all of the sounds each letter makes from "Dr. Seuss's ABC Book". It's a fun read with a nice cadence to it that he really likes. I highly recommend it.

One day while Max was in the tub, I started writing some three-letter words on the shower walls with bathtub crayons. I told him to make the sounds of each letter and put the sounds together, and voila, he was sounding out words. It was such an amazing thing to see the "light turning on" as he figured out each one: "Kkh...Ah...Tuh... CAT!!!" It was a fun game for him, and he loved it. This picture was taken about a year ago:


For the past few months, we would occasionally play a simple game at random times; at the breakfast table, in the car, etc. I would just give him a letter from the alphabet and ask him to tell me some words that started with that letter. He got good at it pretty quick. Sometimes, out of the blue, he would say a word and then tell me what letter it started with. For example, "Hey Mom - Bug starts with the letter B!"

Finally this week he showed some interest in figuring out whole sentences. When we were reading before bed the other night, he was making me read slowly and point out each word, and then he would point at each one and repeat. Then, a couple days ago, the big milestone happened: Max read his first book all by himself! It was "Mat", the first book of a "BOB Books" set. (Beginning Readers Set One) Each set is a series of twelve short, simple books that help kids get comfortable with reading - their confidence grows when they discover that they are able to read an entire book all by themselves. The books then get progressively more difficult as the child moves through the series. I have seen them on many "recommended" lists, and I must agree that I'm a fan now too. It was such a joy to hear my child reading and being so excited about it!


This process has definitely helped me grow more confident in my ability to teach my kids at home. I am successfully teaching my son to read! That is so huge. Max is like a sponge, constantly soaking up information, and it has truly not felt like "work" on my part at all. The key is that he learns like crazy when he is both ready and interested. My job is just to figure out what he's ready for and what he's interested in, and provide resources and guidance in that direction. I am so thankful to be able to do this - I feel like I would really be missing out if I had to hand him over to someone else instead of getting to share in this amazing process every day.