Reading taking off

I can't believe it's been two months since I've last put something here.  It is a shame because with the passage of time it will be hard to pinpoint exactly when JT started, what I call, officially reading.

For at least the last month he has been able to read books completely on his own, even ones he's never read before.  With respect to the GRL (Guided Reading Level) classification, at this point if it is B he can read it on his own the first time, if it is C-D he will read it on his own after I help him with any new words in it (but he will still read the majority of it and try to sound out or guess the new words). 

I haven't used any Flesch cards for a long time, and we haven't used the lightsaber reading for a long time as well.  In fact, we have pretty much tried to remove any blatantly sword or saber things because he tends to get more riled up with those around.  This hasn't stopped him from unscrewing the antennae and using them as swords or unscrewing the handles on his rocking giraffe and placing it inside a foam rocket to make a sword either.  At least he will have to creatively work to get his fill of violence.

His favorite books to read are ones that are funny, in his opinion.  "Robot Burp Head Smartypants" had him ridiculous with the "E-I-E-I-Errrp" burping.  We also read one called "Stalling" last night that had a similar reaction ("Stack some blocks, smell my socks", stinky socks are hilarious).  I think the first book he really read on his own and enjoyed was "Go To Bed Blue".

In retrospect, part of me thinks that I was pushing early reading books on him too early (such as the Bob books). For Emilia, I think I will try to first get to the "lightsaber reading" level before introducing a lot of "reader" books, and just focus on reading a lot to her books that she enjoys.  On the other hand, "Go To Bed Blue", was a book we had checked out months before he was really reading, and I think some of the familiarity with it may have made it easier for him?  Perhaps it's just that he likes the book.

At this point we are just working on learning other patterns of how words sound out.  Sight words seem to be getting picked up as we go along with repetition.  Aside from the "basic" vowel sounds (such as ahhh for a, ehhhh for e, etc...) I have shown him "double o words" and he now has that down pretty well.  We've also done "double e words make the eeeeee sound", as well as "sh", "ch", and "th".  I'm wondering when to point out the silent e rule?  What amazes me is that even if we go over something for 5 min and I don't feel like he really picked anything up, the next time I go over it it's much easier, which really is a well known.

I've also been trying to be more formal in teaching him math (I know, probably going to ruin it for him as well).  I had picked up a cheap Target Pre K math workbook and he really enjoyed it.  It gave me several ideas of what he knows and what he doesn't (for example Most is an easy concept, Least or Fewest, not so much).

In other news, with respect to programming, I have been going through a book called "Think Stats" which covers statistics while implementing all of the concepts in Python.  It's actually been really good because the level of coding is great for me (most of it so far is simple but occasionally there are things I have to really sit down and think about or look up).  Plus, it is very hands on with lots of exercises that really cement and build up my code base which I can refer to or use later.