The most exciting moment!

When I got home from running errands today, my littles were 'hiding' in their beds. They had been having 'quiet reading time'.

Well, oldest informed me that they had been reading & that bigger little had actually been reading by himself.

Oh REALLY? I imagined he must've meant looking @ the pictures or it was a 'baby' book or something. Bigger little has had a frustrating time of reading & writing. And as a home educating mother, feelings of failure have not escaped me.

Well, it was a 'science' reading book. Bigger little started reading & I could NOT believe my ears! I even thought maybe he had just gotten lucky & oldest had read it to him &he somehow remembered it all...oldest assured me he had NOT read it to him!

He was REALLY reading!!!!
All by himself!
Words like: sidewalk, shadow, behind!

My heart bout leapt out of my chest & I almost wanted to cry!
I was SO excited for the BOTH of us!

When he was in kinder we had such a hard time. Phonics was like Chinese to him. I knew right away he was his own person & nothing like oldest ds. I had to stop all phonics instruction @ that time, lest we both become so frustrated & I drive all love of the written word OUT of him forever.

So I have been handling his 'reading instruction' quite gingerly. He seemed to tire easily of reading. As if he had no mental endurance for reading. He also takes his time writing. He can do copy work but it is almost laborious for him. My youngest little (2 years younger) can zip through 2-3 pages of copy/handwriting work in about the time it takes him to do 1 page. He constantly asks for 'breaks'. So it's interesting.

Today was such an encouraging victory!
I made sure to make a VERY big deal out of it & even pretended like I didn't believe he was actually reading.

I know it doesn't stop here, the learning & instruction continues but I am so excited about this 'click' in his brain!!!!!!