A blatant, shameless brag on my two brilliant boys!!!

Dang I have smart kids! Okay, I've said it--and I'm not ashamed to admit I'm hopelessly bragging here! I mean heck, they deserve it--they're smart cookies!

So here's the scoop:

My oldest, Devin, he's been reading for quite a while now and his kinder teacher got him set up with the 'excellerated reading' right away. There are 71 books in the group and he's blown through all of them already. So, she moved on to 'upper level' reading pages--basically comprehension pages where he reads a couple of paragraphs and does a few fill in the blank questions--blew through 6 of them in about 10 mins. So, now he's onto some harder ones--I'm not sure of what grade level they are, but he's enjoying these as well!! Ahhh ain't it grand? I am so proud of him!! I can only hope that he continues to enjoy reading and going to school! He's also whipping through his homework packets (usually 6 or 7 pages) at light speed--please oh please oh please let this love of school last!! lol

Now, onto my second little genius! Ryan, my 3 1/2 yr old, the boy who's never really been interested in sitting still long enough to let me teach him letters and how to write his name, this boy who can barely sit still during a story--this boy...this boy can read!!!! Now, before I continue, I must admit that he and Devin are completely responsible for this! I've had almost no time at all to devote to teaching my little guy the sounds the letters make, let alone how to put them together to form words, but somehow...he got it.

About 2 weeks ago, I had a rare day where both the girls were sleeping and it was just the boys and I. Devin was busy doing his homework and Ryan decided he wanted to do some too. So I said, 'okay, let's do some letters!'. I knew he knew his letters and some of the sounds (Devin likes to read to him a lot and sounds things out for him), but I was truly surprised to find that he knew them all! His only hang up was on the letters that had multiple sounds. Anyway, once I discovered that, I put 'at' on a piece of paper and asked him what it said. He looked at me like a I had a monkey on my head and said, 'I dunno'. I told him to sound it out and did the exaggerated 'aaaa-t, aaa-t, aa-t, a-t, a-t, at, at!' and went from there. Within about 10 minutes he was reading little words like bat, cat, fat, hat, etc. So, we've been working on different words, mostly phonics, but practicing sounding things out. Also the beginning sight words as well.

But here's another amazing fact: he's writing!!!! Now, I have been trying to get him to learn this for a while now, but he's usually only interested in writing a few letters--but since he's started reading he's been writing words all on his own! He uses his maganadoodle mostly (oh how I love that thing!) and he'll write words like cat, bat, etc. Today he even wrote his name (I helped with the spelling) and his penmanship is pretty good--especially considering he holds his crayon really strange. ;)

Ahhh, I am so, so proud of him!!!

So, there you have it--I just had to shout it from the roof tops so to speak. My boys make me so proud!!! :)