Early Reader

Before Jenna started kindergarten we would read books like “The Little Red Hen” and “Frog and Toad”.  I would point to words as I read them and as words started to repeat, I would have her say them.  So before school started she was able to read words such as: hen, frog, toad, red, Not I, said and he.  She could not read the names of states on License plates – nor was she educated enough to decipher between state and country.

The rules of the license plate game (according to Tony) are rather simple.  All participants need to look for license plates from out of the state.  Whoever sees and says the most is the winner. Tony would often play the game himself but would say the names out loud. Jenna decided that she would play too.

“Arizona,” she’d say.

“I already called Arizona.”

“Idaho.”

“You didn’t see Idaho.”

I don’t think she did.  But she insisted on it.  Tony ended up giving it to her out of pity.

“Wyoming!” Tony called.

“Green Land,” said Jenna.  We both knew for a fact that she didn’t see a Green Land license plate.

After Tony stopped laughing he said, “You didn’t see Greenland.”

“Yes I did.”

“Jenna, it is highly probable that you did not see a car with a Greenland license plate,” I said.

“And besides, Greenland isn’t even a state.”

“You can’t count other countries?” I asked.  “I think you should get extra points for countries. I think it would be beyond cool if I were to see a license plate from Greenland.”

“That means I get extra points,” said Jenna.

“You didn’t see a Greenland license plate.”

After kindergarten, big words came easy to her.  She could read princess, museum, dinosaur and purple-licious without any problems.  The word that stumped her every time was the word “of”.  Missed it every time.  It wasn’t spelled correctly in her opinion.  It should have been “UV” – what a dreadful word.

She has now added Spanish words to her vocabulary – saying them – not spelling them.  Spelling is still not her thing – though she does seem to read well.  She obviously doesn’t pay attention to how words are spelled.

Still has a great vocabulary and for the most part really does know what she’s talking about.  And I don’t have to pay her to write stories anymore as I did here and here.