Margaret

This morning is our last Tuesday together due to school starting soon. Mornings are typically hard for her, but she was lively this morning. I introduced her to a word ladder. She had been able to manipulate letters last week to create new words and I thought this activity would be great for combining reading directions with letter manipulation. I modeled the first two and she soon caught on. She read the clues immediately, but had trouble with guessing the words cot and pot. She was able to read the words, once they were created. The rest of the word ladder is did on her own. She wants to try another word ladder next week. 
Then we read our new story and wrote about her favorite part. She is reading level e texts and the stories are getting longer. Her fluency is improving and I noticed today that she is including expression based on the characters' dialogue. This is something we have worked on through Readers Theatre. She was very silly and playful today, writing about the book. She was noticing mistakes and laughing at herself. This does not happen much. She is very serious about her work and it not playful when it comes to writing. At one point, I had to remind her that we were running out of time and needed to finish. It was great to see her being silly and able to enjoy the process.