DD (now 6 yo) started Kindergarten loving to learn and ended the year with the mantra: "I hate reading, I hate math, I hate learning."
I pulled her out and we homeschooled her this year for 1st grade. After a brief, disastrous attempt at structure early on I've pretty much left her alone. Start of "school year" she was reading CVC words fluently but not much else.
Over the past year she was motivated to improve her reading by: seeing a copy of Green Eggs and Ham and getting most of the words right (go girl!), some library reading incentives that got her practicing with early readers and watching The Electric Company. DH also reads chapter books to her every night.
So that's the foundation.
Fast forward to yesterday. I noticed her in her bedroom listing to an audio book and simultaneously looking at "The Curious Kids Guide to Ancient Egypt." Later she came out and said, "Mom, listen to this!" She read the first paragraph with about 75% accuracy. I helped her with some words (with her permission, quickest way to shut her down is to offer unsolicited help). By the end of the day she was reading the whole page with 90% accuracy and feeling pretty darned impressed with herself
This morning, she read to me again with 100% accuracy and continued reading onto page 2 with just a handful of mistakes that she allowed me to help her with.She's reading REAL books. She's reading words like "ancient" and "countries" and "thousand" and, the best part is that she's EXCITED about reading!
Just had to share! Yay DD!
