Reading with M.

 Welcome, and welcome back! A brief update since a lot of time has passed since I regularly updated this blog (a covid project, primarily): As of June 2024, M. is seven, soon going on eight, and L., our new arrival, is six months. In less than two months, we are moving to France for the year for my work. M. will attend CE2 (the French equivalent of third grade) while we are there. L. will likely stay home full-time, as she has proven to be a more reliable napper than M. was, at least in early infancy. In January we might reevaluate the situation, but, as romantic as the crèche  sounds and how much hype it gets in anglophone circles, it is actually pretty tough to get a spot if both parents aren't working full-time in an office. We also just feel like she is very little to go to daycare, even if what is available is high quality, since we have the flexibility to keep her home for now. As far as this big transition goes for M., I began speaking to him in French on and off from w...

 It has been a while since I updated this but I wanted to provide an update on M's reading. He just finished a tough but ultimately very good second grade year. Despite his intense interest in being read to since age three, only by the end of this academic year has he mastered reading on his own. (And we still have a way to go, but we are now reading at grade level.) As far as we know, M. doesn't have dyslexia, but he did receive an ADHD diagnosis this year. We are also very lucky that our school district uses a phonics-based curriculum (Fundations), as this was key in M. learning to decode. All this said, having begun the year reading Llama Llama Red Pajama , M. finished out the year with the Dragon Masters  series and has nearly finished book five. Some of the books we read on the way: 1. The Jack Book  Series by Mac Barnett and Greg Pizzoli (this was actually at the end of first grade) 2. Grizzwold   by Syd Hoff 3. Danny and the Dinosaur  by Syd Hoff (we als...