Sonya, Another Delightful reading question

If she can already read Sarah Plain and Tall, I don’t think she needs Delightful Reading. The main thing is to give her plenty of practice reading aloud now. My girls loved the Pathway Readers for reading “practice.” Sounds like she could easily start with Days Go By, the first grade reader, to get to know Peter and Rachel and the family. I usually had my girls read aloud to me up through the grade 3 readers. Once they were reading those fluently aloud, I “turned them loose.”

The one component that might be helpful with Delightful Reading is the gentle introduction to spelling that is included with the letter tiles and looking at the words carefully so as to form them with those tiles. You could probably do something similar, though, to encourage her to develop the habit of looking at how words are spelled as she reads. An informal way to do it is to make it a little game. Give her a sentence or paragraph (later) to read and tell her that you are going to ask her how to spell one of the words in that sentence after she reads it. Choose an easier word to begin with and celebrate success, of course. But that little informal activity done regularly can help her cultivate that important habit.

It sounds like your daughter would be ready to start Delightful Reading whenever you think is best. If you want to go ahead and start in now, she has the skills (based on your description) to jump into the actual reading lessons in the teacher book. If you would rather take a little time off to get settled in and get through the twaddle withdrawal (LOL), you could just continue reading good books together for now and she will still be ready later this spring/summer or next fall. Enjoy your freedom.