Reading or memorisation?

Last week, Isabel's school sent home a list of what it expects from parents and pupils, and in turn what we should expect from the school. The intention is that you read this document through with your child, then sign the form and return it to the school.

One of the expectations was that parents listen to their child read every night, so we've been trying to set time aside each evening to do this. The books Isabel brings home are, as previously discussed, from the Oxford Reading Tree series and therefore somewhat less exciting than watching paint dry. However, in her bag today I found a bookmark with a list of books on the back of it. Now, whether these are books they should be able to read, or good books to read with them, I'm not quite sure, but we took the plunge, found that we owned one of the books, and set off.

The book in question was Peace At Last, and Isabel looked very dubious as to whether she'd be able to read it. But she boldly plunged in and, to her surprise and mine, started ploughing through the pages with very few problems. She claims not to have read the book in question at school, and we've not read it together for ages. She struggled in places but was certainly able to read 90% of it. However, when she easily read words like "refrigerator" I got a bit suspicious, so either she's a genius reader, or she has an excellent memory, or she's using the picture clues very well. Either way, she did brilliantly, and Emsy, despite her cold, loved having her big sis read her a story. A good start to Year 1 - well done that girl!