Isabella started soccer tonight. She was so excited, but a bit nervous when she was actually there. It helped that our neighbor's son is in the program too, and they ended up on the same team. She's a Bobcat. ;D She gave it her all, in her own way. She didn't want to steal the ball from the other kids (perhaps all those conversation about waiting your turn and not taking things from other kids have sunk in finally?), but really enjoyed kicking when the ball happened to come her way. She has 5 more game nights, and she can't wait. She really enjoyed herself.

Speaking of Isabella, I've been working with her on reading. Abigail did great with the Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons method (though we only did about 50 of the lessons). Isabella, not so much. I think she'll be more of a sight words reader. She can remember most of the sounds we've worked on, but anticipates the ending of words when she reads them and has difficulty with the process of blending sounds together when sounding something out. She'll says the sounds S, A, T, but when putting them together, she might say "Sam" instead of "Sat". It can be really frustrating, for both of us. I got the first set of Bob Books from the library to try with her, and I may have to buy them. We have the level 2 ones already, but with Abigail I never bought the level 1 books. Isabella sat down with me and read the first book almost right away. The book format instead of just a list of words to read really helped her confidence and concentration. The repetition of the words is great for someone like her who reads more by the word then by the sounds. We worked on the sounds C and D yesterday, and she read the second book yesterday, though the word Sad was a source of frustration as she kept wanting to say Sat.

It's tricky though because she is very smart with a pretty good memory. After only a couple of times through the first book, I think she is just reading it from memory, cued by the pictures. Today I had her touch under the words she was reading, just to make sure she was actually reading instead of just reciting the story. It did alter her cadence, so I think she has been just reciting some of the last few times she read that book to me.