"the learner will"

ok, let me drag up my memories of the one education class i took a million yrs ago.

by the end of 8th grade, the learner will:

read rashi correctly (letter recognition and reading without nekudos)
translate rashi decently

and possibly

know some of the more common abbreviations

****

how have i been trying to achieve this? i pick a rashi that is pshat oriented and whose language is fairly simple. then either i tell chana what it means outside, or i read it to her and explain it, or she reads it and tries to understand it, depending on complexity and her mood.

then we review it and review it until she knows it pretty fluently.

***

what is the problem with this method? i have been a bit lax at finding rashis. i have been using them to enhance chumash--to provide more explanation of the plain meaning of the text. while this is nice, it is not giving us sufficient practice at rashi reading and translation.

i wonder if i should construct a rashi curriculum on its own, aside from chumash, for chana to work on the skills i would like her to acquire. i need to find rashis that stand on their own and are pretty simple. the down side of that is that rashi really is best in the context of the pasuk.