I love that one. My daughter was an early reader, and her first grade teacher didn't believe my note at the beginning of the school year that she read as well as she did. I told her that while Caroline occasionally skipped over words she didn't recognize, she would be bored if she couldn't read during the day because she loved it. A note came back to say that "recognition without true understanding wasn't really reading." To nip this misunderstanding in the bud I set up a conference and had Caroline choose something to read. Her teacher had that book up on a shelf, and Caroline had complained to me that it was up where she couldn't reach it, so we got that book down and Caroline chose "Sarah Cynthia Sylvia Stout Would Not Take the Garbage Out" to read to us. To her credit, the teacher was totally focused on Caroline as she not only read but understood and enjoyed this wonderful poem. I just pulled out our copy--it's held together with rubberbands because we read it so much that it's falling apart.

SRS