We finished our first Hardy Boys book today, the one we started on Monday. Haroun is still reading aloud, and we still take turns reading although he is reading for longer and longer stretches. We average 90-100 minutes of reading in two sessions, plus a repeated-reading or writing exercise.
It is claimed that the 100 most common words in English make up 50% of written words. Here’s a list of the top 100 words.
Haroun’s intensive daily practice shows up clearly in common words, which are now ‘sight-vocabulary’ and do not have to be decoded. That leaves him more brain-power and attention for decoding longer words and for comprehension. Both skills are improving apace.
His vocabulary is probably growing 4-5 words per day, which would represent 1,500 new words per year if he kept at it for a year. The average high-school student reportedly has a 10,000 word vocabulary (mostly gained through reading), so he is going to enter high school with an impoverished vocabulary. Hopefully he will catch up.
No magic to any of this. Just daily practice, and the Hardy Boys are so much fun that it’s not work at all. We will start a new one on Monday.
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