Phonics According to Natalie

After a bit of a rough start with reading in 1st grade, Natalie is suddenly on fire.  She reads everything and anything she can.  She is reading at least one Dr. Seuss book to me every night and reads them to herself when I am not available.  She reads signs, labels and anything else she can find.  Along with this jump in reading, she has begun writing independent notes including big words that I can usually understand, even with the often phonetic spelling.

Tonight, after she cruised through a Dr. Seuss book she actually had not heard or read before (The Foot Book) she read The Pigeon Has Feelings Too, something I have read to her several times in the past.  She got hung up on the word 'wait'.  I reminded her of the rule, "When two vowels go walking, the first one does the talking."  She looked at me silently for a minute, so I prompted her, "Which vowel does the talking in this word?"

Without hesitation, she announced proudly, "W!"

Hmmm, I guess we still have some work to do.