DD(4) is a similarly quirky early reader. I guess DD was peculiar in that she read very fluently from early on, (once she switched from sounding out to whole language reading at just turned three.) I have played back videos of her reading at three and they are astounding. She always read with full comprehension and used inflection and correct pausing. These were second grade texts at three-years-old. I now realize that that is uncommon for new readers to sound so fluent.
I think she never stumbled in decoding because her grasp on the contextual clues was so strong. And, this is still the case. She does not like to fall back on sounding out words when she gets confused and loses her 'flow'. It is too much work, so she will just give up. This happens with the thicker books, and is the reason she has not progressed. Conversely, she cannot read as well without any context. She does not automatically read environmental print as much as she should because she misses the context clues and would have to sound out.
I figured it would give her something to work on in kindergarten. (Right now she is in an academic free preschool.) I have tried to encourage her to sound out words but it is like pulling teeth. I do appreciate some of the suggestions here.
