A Proud Moment

My oldest daughter turned 8 in September. She has always been a pretty good student but this year she has really started to shine. Because she is the first born, she is not interesting in doing anything that she cannot do perfectly (she comes by that honestly). Math has always come pretty easy to her and most subjects she does great. However, she does get extremely frustrated at herself if she misses even 1 problem in whatever she is doing. So, learning to read well has been a challenge. If a word, sentence, paragraph or book seemed difficult or beyond her ability, she would want to quit. We didn't quit. We fought and pushed our way through and she has become a fantastic reader.

It has only been in the last couple of months that she truly has started to enjoy reading. Now, I catch her often with a book in her lap. Her favorite series is the American Girl sets. I don't know how many of you are familiar with these books or dolls, but I had never heard of them until last year. I was in Sam's looking for some books for her to read that she would be interested enough in that she would want to read. There are not many options for this age group that I approve of and that interest little girls. Well, I came across an American Girl set and brought it home. At first, the chapters and big words were intimidating to her. Over time, she has fallen in love. Now, she has several different girls from the series that she has read. Her favorite right now is Josephina (she can tell you anything you want to know about her).

As much fun as it has been to see her love of reading explode, my proudest moment yet came this morning. I had all the kids go to a room by themselves to spend some time with Jesus and read their Bibles. After we were all done, my oldest came to me with her Bible. She showed how she had read from Matthew 1:18 all the way to chapter 5. She told me what she had read about and I told her proud I was of her. Then she told me that she also read Psalms 90:11 and that she wrote that verse down on a piece of paper to help her remember. I asked her why she went to that verse. She proceeded to explain to me that "sometimes in the Bible there is a little verse that shows you where else you can find that verse somewhere else in the Bible." So, she had read Matthew and cross-referenced to Psalms!! I have never taught her about that before. She figured it out all by herself! Now, that is a proud moment. I love that this passion for reading includes learning more about her Lord and Saviour!