Reading Eggs

I teach Lilly at home.  We do letter sounds, math lessons, reading about animals, etc.  I have "taught" her a lot of things.  Often times, I wonder if she is retaining any of the information that we have talked about.  Over the last couple of weeks I have seen her spark of interest in reading and it has brought me confirmation that she is retaining some things.  For example, she has taken an interest in "sounding words out."  She will take my cell phone and compose a text message full of random letters (sometimes they make real words and sometimes not) and then proceed to sound out the word.  You should see the light in her eyes when she realizes she has made a real word.  It is exciting for me to see the light bulb turn on for her, realizing that letters make words.

The other day on FB, a friend of mine had a posting on this reading site called www.readingeggs.com so I decided to check it out.  It teaches letter sounds, letter recognition, sight word recognition, sounding out words, rhyming words and so much more.  There are two parts to the site, one is for younger children, like my daughter (who is almost 4) and one for older children.  Both parts, allow the child to earn "eggs" by playing the games and spend them on things like items for their "house" or clothing for their "character", etc. I love that it doesn't allow the child to go on to the next game if they have not mastered the skill they are currently working on.  Lilly loves playing it and I enjoy watching her play, amazed at how much she is actually reading. 

A little bragging: At the beginning they quiz the child to see what level to start them on and I was happy to see that she is "reading" on a 4.75 year old level.  Maybe all the homeschooling lessons I have done with her have really been helping.