This morning Moira did a couple hours of a comprehensive speech and reading assessment. We’ll get results later after scoring so more on that to come.

This afternoon after she spent hours doing that testing I didn’t want to subject her to any intensive lessons, but I wanted to get a lesson done. I grabbed our fables book, it includes a picture and one page summary of various famous ones. I read it aloud and then we did a story chart on it – main characters, setting, plot. Then to make it even more fun I read it again while the kids took turns acting out the various parts and narrating back for me what happened. We were out in our newly converted sunroom/studio so there was tons of run around space after our morning dance class. I didn’t imagine they would have so much fun with it but C then read various fables to them while they acted out more and more of them.

So, fun way to narrate and cover story charts. It kept them all involved from the 8.5 year old down through the not yet 2 year old (though they did have to prompt him to recite his lines.) 🙂 When Kit came home I asked the kids to tell Kit about it, giving them another chance to narrate and cement the stories in their minds.

We found a TON of classic novels at the various thrift shops while on vacation and I snagged them all, along with a couple more modern ones of different reading levels. C’s into dragons right now so I found a couple for him and I was eating a belated lunch and trying to do some of my own reading when he sat next to me and started to talk about his latest novel. While selfishly I wanted to keep reading my book, I also realized that he was seeking a chance to talk with me (one of his love languages) and he was narrating a story to me (always a good lesson) and me connecting with my 8 year old son was much, much more important than me reading to myself. I know, duh, how obvious is it that he takes precedence? But I think when I’m focused on my own reading I get tunnel vision and it was humbling to hear the prompting, “Put your book down and listen to your son.” I’m really, really glad I did and I resolve to be more in tune with when my children are seeking those moments to connect with me.