Reading

It's ok, I'm not going to brag about how many reading books my miniature genius has brought home from school so far in the school year, or reproduce the comments from her teachers in her reading log. Some things are strictly for my own smug self.  I do need to say though, despite our school not using the Biff, Chip and Kipper books, we've got a few at home, and I want to set social services onto that family. Not only do the parents give them ridiculous names, but they couldn't be trusted to manage a morning poo without help, never mind raise a family.

However. Before the summer break, Squeaky's nursery class teacher encouraged us to work on 3 letter CVC (consonant, vowel, consonant) words with her, to support her in-school learning. You know, the kind of words that won't get you very far on Countdown, but are pretty useful in day to day life.

Now I love a challenge, and putting together a cheap teaching resource (comes from trying to manage a training section with no training budget), so I got a cheapy spiral bound notebook, and sat down with scissors and coloured pens, and *that* look in my eyes.  Scissors to divide each page into two.  On the left hand section, all the consonants, plus CH, SH & TH.  On the right, various vowel and consonant pairs that can be used with the leading consonants to form popular three or 4 letter words.

M-A-T

CAT, SAT, RAT, FAT, HAT, THAT

BAR, CAR, FAR, JAR
HEN, PEN, MEN
HIP, LIP, SHIP, CHIP
BIN, TIN, GIN?

Mummy's special pop

Ooops.  And that's only the start. What seemed like such a good idea, and such a cheap resource takes so much of my concentration. I can't exactly let her learn all the possible words in the book, can I? I can see the teacher's face now.  And worse still, Squeaky is starting to try and build her own words, and asks "what does G-O-F spell?", so the day I get asked about S-E-X can't be far off.

Bring on parents' evening, I've got some questions!