Reading Award

( I typed up a post just like this yesterday but blogger or my laptop ate it, don't you love that?)

Last week we hit a huge milestone for Elijah and his homeschooling. He completely finished his Hooked on Phonics, Kindergarten reading program! It took him just a little over a year. We started out pretty slowly in the fall of 2009 because he was already so familiar with letters and their sounds. It just made sense for him to go ahead and start learning the basics. In the fall of 2010 we picked up the pace quite a bit as he was really catching on quickly and before I knew it, he had finished the work book and read all his companion books. He's also gotten to the point where he tries to read everything he sees and often does a pretty good job. He tries to spell things on his own now, too, using his knowledge of phonics and "sounding things out". Long gone are the days where Matthew and I could spell things in front of him that we didn't want him to hear!

To celebrate his achievement, I printed him out a reading award for him to put on his wall. Also, we took him out on Saturday for a Happy Meal. This was his favorite part, of course. We're so proud of him and looking forward to the next step in his schooling!

Congratulations!

(As you can see, my camera is still hanging in there, but barely. All the pictures are coming out super-blurry now. But blurry pictures are better than none at all, I guess.)