Jessie Can Spell!!

Wow! We had a sweet moment tonight.  For about a year I guess, I'd been thinking about how to move Jessie to learning to spell, but knowing that she just wasn't quite there.  Jessie has a couple of ways of letting me know when I introduce something new, that it's just more effort than she's willing to give.  Sometimes I can (with those Mama Super Power Tactics) get her motivated and other times just have to give it up for a while.  She'd been showing interest in spelling...but only if it was what she wanted to spell. She can spell a few names: her own (first and last), and a few friend's names at church that she always wants to make notes for. She has copied their names over a few times until she can spell them. I was quite impressed that 2 of them have 6 letters each.  She is close to being able to spell her brother and sister's names; and can spell our dog's name, Boo.  So, the last week or so, as part of her handwriting practice I gave her 5 words: love, my, girl, dog, name.  I chose these words because they are words she reads, understands and they have meaning to her.  Mind you, I've tried this before but at that point she wasn't quite ready, so I dropped it for a while.  We always read the words that she writes for handwriting, so we just changed it up a little. Pointing to love, I ask her if she can spell love, then say with her, moving my finger across the letters L, O, V, E, that spells love.  You get the idea.  Tonight at time to brush her teeth, I decided to review her spelling words with her....and discovered that she can spell love, my, dog, and is close to having girl and name. Woo hoo!! I clapped, squealed and carried on....she loved watching me make a fool of myself, she laughed too.