Cordelia Reads!
Today Cordelia read a book! She wanted a second bedtime book, and I said she could have another book but she had to read it herself. In the past she has "read" those baby dictionary-type board books with a one-to-one word-to-picture ratio. This time she picked a Clifford easy reader. I stood my ground and got her to read it and she actually read the whole thing with a combination of all the tools she's supposed to use: phonics, word recognition, and context.
She kept saying, "My brain doesn't want to do that!" when I said, "sound it out" or "that's a popcorn word", but eventually her brain stepped up.
(A popcorn word is a word that you recognize on sight, it just "pops" into your head. Delphine taught us that terminology.)