Thursday, August 12, 2010

Literacy. I'm a fan.

Nea will learn to read if it kills me. And it might. TBD. I said to N recently that I want her to love to read, and then I burst into tears. If there's one thing I want my kids to have it's a love of reading. Empathy? Whatever. Athletic ability? Like I care. A fulfilling happy existence? Well. That would be nice, but who's all fulfilled and happy if they aren't voracious readers? I mean, really. As if.

Anyway. My point is. Oh, right, my newest theory on how to get this kid to read. The problems are A) kids with apraxia generally have more trouble learning to read, since they can't sound out the words. B) I think she has dyslexia, based mostly on the fact that she works so hard but retains so little. Shapes and colors took forever to stick. Letters, too.

In case you don't have a kid who has been in kindergarten recently, the fairly new thing is "sight words." The words you should know essentially by rote repetition. Memorizing the shape of the letters forming the word.

So, let's just hammer home the 100 most commonly used words in the English language, yes? Yes! What a great idea! Before you read any further, take this little quiz. Can you name the top 100? It's fun! C'mon, take a break! Oh, right, you already were!

I haven't done the blow by blow to compare their answers to the Wikipedia entry. Feel free to do an analysis and report back. If you really need another reason to procrastinate something.

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