Teeny celebration (The rangers saved her.)

Anything that my homeschooler perceives as "academic" creates a great deal of anxiety.

Because the pressure she senses creates such anxiety for her, I've really backed off a lot lately, allowing her to chase interests, look at books of her own choosing without requiring that she read to me or with me. She likes a book about Egypt that we bought at a Scholastic warehouse sale; she likes the Holman Illustrated Bible Dictionary For Kids, too.

Today, I sat down with her, and brought with me a stack of books. We read two of them, and a devotion from a third. (She didn't seem interested in the others; I let them go, for now.)

One of the books was a short chapter book about a girl taking riding lessons, which she helped me read. One was the book pictured at the left, Lola & Tiva, which I found at that same Scholastic warehouse sale. (Actually, every book that I have mentioned in this post except the Bible dictionary came from that Scholastic warehouse sale.)

After some her usual and annoying resisting, protesting, and interrupting me begging for a video game, Li'l Bit settled down and we read the two books and one devotional together. She got control of her begging somehow. That is worth celebrating, at least a teeny bit!

The bigger teeny celebration is for the narration she gave me afterwards. She has been able to tell the end of a story, which is more about remembering the words than it is about comprehension. I'm not looking for memorized phrases or the end of the story. I don't want to reinforce that for her.

So, today, I asked her to tell me something about Lola, the rhino in the story. Narration is tough for a kid who uses memorizaton as a compensation. I asked a simple question to give my girl something to refer to: Did she come from a pet store, I wondered aloud? She replied:

"The rangers saved her."

"The rangers saved her." A rich, amazing (non-memorized, non-line from the story) summary of how Lola came to know the little girl in the story, Tiva.

That's enough to build on. ;)

Share one of your teeny celebration moments with me. I'd love to hear from you.