Reading aloud

One of the hallmarks of the Charlotte Mason method is reading aloud from living books. We have read chapters and chapters in the past three weeks. This morning, I can see a real improvement in the boys' narrations. They are recalling more and more facts from each reading.

But I'm thinking that this reading aloud is having a secondary benefit. Over the weekend, John Micah (2 yr old) exploded with language. He was saying "door" and going to shut the door. He repeated things we pointed to at the park like bird and pecan. I called for my husband saying, "Babe!" He went running through the house saying, "Bay, Bay, DAD!" I asked him to go get some wipes. He ran off calling for his brother, "Day(Davy), Day, Wipes." During Children's Liturgy, he was fascinated with the glue stick so he kept saying, "Glue" to get it passed back to him. He probably added about 25 words this weekend.

The speech therapist that has been helping us try to get John Micah to grow his language through games and other techniques. We've agreed that there is a whole lot more language in there than is coming out because he understands so much. If you ask him to do something, he immediately responds correctly. But the older children were all talking for him. I would ask him what he wanted to drink and others would be telling me what they thought he wanted. Little Momma (Katie Rose) will still do this but the older boys are trying more to get him to use his words.

We've had no big breakthrough during his speech therapy time so it must be due to hearing a whole lot more words during his typical day as well as a few more preschool activities. I had to text the speech therapist with how awesome he was doing and she agreed that when it was natural for him, we would get the most from him.

So we are beginning our fourth week of this homeschool year. We are planning a zoo trip this week. We're reading more in the Aeneid including a part this morning about a little boy with fire around his head which showed how he was favored by the Greek gods. This was neat since we could compare that story to the story of Pentecost with the Holy Spirit coming down and fire appearing above the Christians' heads which we read about recently in The First Christians. I love these overlapping concepts which have happened several times. It gives us more than one occasion to study a concept and recall what we've learned.