//------------------------------// // Sonata's Lessons // Story: Sonata Can't Read // by sonicfan05 //------------------------------// Shortly after the gang confronted Trixie, they all headed to the Principle's office and reported everything Trixie and her group had done to Principle Celestia. As punishment, Principle Celestia had Trixie, the Illusions, and Snips and Snails to take down every single posters throughout the school. After that, they will spent their time in detention after school for two months. Despite Principle Celestia's efforts, the damage was already done as many students continued to mock Sonata whenever she was roaming around the hallway to her next class. Luckily, her tormentors were chased away the moment her best friends (especially Aria) sent a glare to their direction whenever they around her. Word had already spread around the school like wildfire about the bet between Trixie and Sonata. Many students were already placing bets of their own whether Sonata is able to pull it off or not. The gang paid no attention to them as they left the school perimeter after all of their classes were done for the day. Both Adagio and Aria had to go to the mall for their job shifts while the rest of the gang were heading to Twilight’s house. Once they made it to Twilight’s bedroom (and got some milk and cookies courtesy of Pinkie Pie), they all sat on the floor while Twilight was busy writing something on her trusty chalkboard. When she was finished, Twilight stepped around the chalkboard and then stood facing the girls, specifically at Sonata. “Okay Sonata,” Twilight began in her lecture mode. “In order for you to learn how to read, you must first learn the basic grammar groups for certain words so that not only they will be useful for reading, but for writing as well.” Sonata drooped. “Aw… I’ve just spent hours in school and now I have to go to school… outside of school?” Sunset placed her hand on Sonata’s shoulder. “Listen Sonata, I know this isn’t ideal to you, but we’re trying to help teach you to read. And I think Twilight’s lessons will be the perfect place to start.” “She’s probably just saying that because she’s kissing up to her girlfriend.” Rainbow whispered quietly to Pinkie, only to received a hard jab on the rib by Applejack. “Sunset’s right partner, just give Twi a chance Sonata,” Applejack encouraged. Sonata looked unsure for a moment until she let out her soft sigh. “Well… alright. I’ll give this a shot!” Twilight nearly squeed in excitement. “Great! Now let’s start with the basics!” She then flipped the board around, revealing many written diagrams on the board. “We’ll start off with identifying the words from three different groups of grammar…” And so, throughout the whole lesson, Twilight explained to Sonata every detail about basic grammar. As Twilight goes on and on, her friends barley kept up with her. Some of them like Fluttershy, Rarity, Applejack and even Sunset Shimmer were nodding to every Twilight’s words, while Pinkie Pie and Rainbow Dash were almost at a point of falling asleep. After what it seemed like over a half-an-hour, Twilight concluded her lesson. “And those are the three basic groups of grammar,” Twilight finished before facing her audience. “Do you have any questions Son—” Twilight, as well as the others was dumbfounded when they noticed that Sonata was actually falling asleep, while leaning on Twilight’s bed this whole time. Her snores were barely loud and a bit of her drool were leaking from the corner of her mouth. Twilight’s expression changed to a look of annoyance and frustration. “SONATA!” Sonata immediately bolted upright from her slumber and her eyes snapped opened. “WHA!? I’M TACO!” When her awareness kicked in and noticed that Twilight was glaring at her, she smiled sheepishly. “I mean... awake. Heh heh.” Twilight crossed her arms and frown in disapproval. “Sonata! You fell asleep during my lesson!” Sonata looked down in embarrassment while twiddling with her fingers. “I’m so sorry Twilight! Your teaching voice puts me asleep. Could you please start over?” Twilight cocked her eyebrow. “Which part?” “Um… the beginning?” Sonata answered nervously. Before Twilight could retort, Rainbow groaned loudly in annoyance. “No offense Egghead, but I think your “lesson” is pretty boring!” “It’s not boring!” Twilight argued indignantly. “It’s a basic lesson about reading!” “Calm down Twi,” Sunset smoothed as she got up and placed her hand on her girlfriend’s shoulder. “Your lesson is good, but I think maybe we should come up with a better method to teach Sonata.” “I think I know the perfect method to help Sonata!” Pinkie chirped, who suddenly appeared right next to them and startling the couple in the process. “Instead of using some traditional boring lesson, we should teach her with some musical intervention!” “Musical intervention?” Sonata uttered in confusion. Pinkie nodded. “Yepperoni! We’ll just go over every single letter of the alphabet, but we’ll learn them from a song!” “Oh please she not going to sing a rap song again,” Rainbow moaned as she leaned her face on the palm of her hand. Pinkie shook her head. “It’s not a rap song Dashie,” Pinkie picked up an eraser and erased everything on the board much to Twilight’s protests. Then in a record speed, Pinkie wrote all the letters from “A” to “Z” on the board. “This song!” Applejack’s eyes lit up in understanding. “Oh Ah get it! Yer gonna use the old “ABC” song to teach Sonata to learn the alphabet.” Pinkie let out her full tooth grin. “That’s riiiiiiiiiight!~” Twilight held her chin in thought. “Huh, I guess that could work. Learning the alphabet with that song is a typical method to learn the basic of reading by being familiar to the sound of each letter. Many Preschools used this song for a reason.” “And it’s so fun to sing along!” Pinkie added cheerfully. “Aaaaaaanywho, I’ll just sing this song and then you can just sing along Nata!” “Well… okay. Maybe this’ll be fun!” said Sonata with a small smile. “That’s the spirit!” Pinkie chirped. “And everyone can join in too!” “Uh-uh! No way!” Rainbow exclaimed. “I’m not gonna sing this lame song!” “Come on Dashie! It’s only to help a friend,” Pinkie insisted with her pleading eyes. Rainbow could barely resisted Pinkie’s eyes and groaned in defeat. “Fiiiiiiiiiiine! But this better not leave this room!” And so Pinkie and the Rainbooms sang the ABC song to Sonata a few times. Sonata thought the song is kinda catchy and couldn’t help but hum along. After they concluded the song the third time, Pinkie faced Sonata with a smile. “See? It’s fun!” “Oh yeah it’s fun… to torture someone with!” Rainbow muttered. Ignoring Rainbow, Pinkie pointed the board. “Now you try Sonata!” Sonata nodded. “Okay.” Pinkie began to sing the first few letters. “A. B. C. D. E. F. G.~” “H. I. C. K… and… 2. B.~” Sonata sang in her bad singing tone. She then smiled. “Hey, I’m learning to read already!” Everyone stared at Sonata with their dumbfounded expressions. Rainbow Dash sighed heavily as she facepalmed. “Well that backfired.” Sonata cheeks suddenly had a shade of red in embarrassment. “Sorry girls, my singing wasn’t as good as it used to be. A-and I was usually more of a backup singer than a lead singer.” “It’s alright Sugarcube, no harm done,” said Applejack. “We just need to come up with somethin’ else.” No one said a word until Rarity spoke up with sparkles in her eyes. “Ideaaaaa!~ I know just the thing that can help you Darling!” Sometime later, everyone was in Rarity’s bedroom from within her house. As everyone was hanging around, Rarity was busy digging through her closet, looking for something. After a few minutes of searching, Rarity finally found what she was looking for. She took out a small white rectangle box and walked over to Sonata, who was sitting on Rarity’s bed. Once she’s near Sonata, Rarity opened up the box and took out a bunch of stock cards in a shape of a standard writing paper. Each card contained a random image with a word underneath it. Sonata stared at the stock cards with her curious expression. “What are these Rarity?” “These are my old visual cue cards that I used back when I was little,” Rarity answered with a look of nostalgia on her face. “I remember struggling with reading myself for the first few weeks at Preschool. When my dear mother noticed that I’m more of a visual learner, she bought these cards for me so I can have a better understanding of reading. And it worked! Sweetie Belle also used these to learn how to read and I have full confidence that these will help you as well.” “That’s a great idea Rarity,” said Twilight. “Sometime the best way to learn is to just see an image with a word telling you what it is. That way, after she sees them over and over, she’ll recognize the word easily when she reads on her own.” Rarity nodded. “Indeed Darling!” She then smiled at Sonata. “So Sonata, do you want to try it out?” Sonata thought for a moment before she shrugged. “Well I am pretty good when it comes to pictures, so I’ll give them a shot.” “Splendid!” Rarity replied with a smile. Rarity took out a random card with a picture and a word and showed it to Sonata. “Okay Darling, now tell me what this picture and that word is.” Sonata stared pointedly at the card for a moment, making everyone tensed up with anticipation. After a long minute of silence, Sonata finally answered. “Um… a Beach Ball?” Rarity shook her head. “An orange? Rarity shook her head again. “Jellybean?” Rarity stared blankly. “A hedgehog?” Rarity frowned. “Coconut?” Rarity’s eyes were half lid. “OOH I got it! Taco!” “…not even close.” Rarity sighed. Rainbow huffed and stood up from the floor. “Okay, these won’t do any good! I have an even better solution that will help Sonata and put everyone else’s methods to shame!” Sonata blinked as she surveyed around the field of their school. “The track field?” “Yep!” Rainbow said proudly. “What better way to learn how to read and keep in shape at the same time is to run around the whole track! It helps me study for one of Cheerilee’s test and I’m sure as heck this will help Sonata!” The track field itself is a typical standard four hundred meter track in a form of a giant oval with eight lanes and a grassy field in the middle. One of the tracks had multiple track hurdles, which spaced several feet apart from each other. Each of Sonata’s friends were standing right next to the hurdle with a huge cue cards with a random word on it. Sunset, who was standing next to the first hurdle, had an unsure expression. “I don’t know about this Rainbow,” said Sunset. “Sonata isn’t exactly as athletic as you are.” “It’ll be fine!” Rainbow insisted, waving off Sunset’s concern. She then faced Sonata with her stern expression. “Now Sonata, the directions are simple. As you are running along this track, you’ll see us holding a cute card with a word next to the track hurdle, as you get closer, we’ll tell you what the word is and then the moment we said it, you’ll try to jump over the hurdle while repeating the word loudly back to us exactly as we said. Rise, lather, and repeat for the next one. Any questions?” Sonata spoke up nervously. “Well I—” “One two three – GO!” Rainbow immediately pushed Sonata forward, forcing Sonata to run. With a yelp, Sonata started running towards the first hurdle where Sunset was standing. As she got closer, Sunset flipped her card over to Sonata, revealing the first word. “Cat!” Sunset shouted. “CAT!” Sonata repeated loudly as she hopped over the hurdle. Luckily, Sonata successfully jumped over the hurdle and then sprinted to the next one. As she gotten closer to the next one, Sonata spotted Applejack who was next to the second hurdle. Like before, as Sonata was a few feet away, Applejack immediately flipped her card over, revealing the next word to her. “Chair!” Applejack hollered. “CHAIR!” Sonata said loudly as she jumped. Once again, Sonata had successfully made it over the hurdle and then speed over to the next one. Shortly after that, Sonata spotted the third hurdle with Pinkie Pie standing next to it. As Sonata had gotten closer, Pinkie flipped her card over and showed off the third word. “Ball!” Pinkie cheered loudly. “BALL!” Sonata barely shouted as soon as she jumped. After her third successful jump, Sonata continued to run down the track. Despite her huffing and puffing, Sonata formed into her small smile. Hey, this is actually kinda fun! She thought. Maybe Rainbow’s method really was the best! Within seconds Sonata reached the next hurdle with Twilight next to it this time. Confidence was building up within the young Siren, ready to jump for the next word. As for Twilight, she quickly flipped over the card and revealed the next word. “Duck!” Twilight shouted. Sonata’s confidence was quickly chanced into panic. “Duck!? Uh oh!” Sonata quickly bowed her head and covered her head, but she continued to run forward. Twilight’s eyes were widened into a panic. “Wait Sonata! That’s not what I—LOOK OUT!” Unfortunately for the Siren, Sonata crashed into a hurdle and she then she tumbled around until she landed into the ground face first. Everyone gasped at the scene and they all rushed over to their fallen friend. Sunset was the first to make it over to Sonata and then she flipped her friend over to look for any sign of injury. “Sonata! Are you okay?” Sunset asked with worry. “Da lights went out… all ov’a da world…” “Yeah… she’s fine.” Rainbow commented. She winced when everyone sent a glare to her way. As Twilight comforting Sonata, Sunset slowly stood up. “Well that didn’t work!” Sunset sighed before facing Applejack and Fluttershy. “Do either any of you girls know any other method of learning how to read?” The two girls looked at each other with their unsure expression before they turned back to Sunset. “Ah got nothin’,” Applejack replied with her apologetic look. “I just kinda learned it naturally. And Ah’m more of a workin’ gal than a readin’ gal.” Sunset then looked expectedly at her animal loving friend. “Fluttershy?” Fluttershy looked down glumly. “Um… no. I can’t come up with anything… sorry.” Sonata, after recovering somewhat, sighed sadly. “At this rate, I will never learn to read! Maybe I’m just not cut out to it at all.” “Don’t say that Sonata,” said Sunset. “I’m sure there’s got to be some kind of learning method that may work for you.” “Then what?” Sonata asked pointedly. Everyone just stood around in silence, not sure what to do. Almost everyone came up with their own different tactic and each one failed miserably. It was some time before Twilight faced her girlfriend with a thoughtful look on her face. “Say Sunset, you mentioned to me earlier that you told Sonata that were learning to read our language when you first entered this world, right?” “Uh, yeah?” “How did you do it?” Twilight asked. Sunset held her chin in thought. “Well, like I told Sonata, I pretty much taught myself throughout the first month of this world.” Sunset frowned deeply. “I’m… not very proud of myself, but I used to sneak into the library almost all the time at night whenever it closes. I would then take out every single self-taught books I could find, including—” Suddenly, Sunset’s eyes were widened as something clicked from her mind. She then had a huge smile on her face. “Wait a minute… of course! Why didn’t I think of this before?!” Everyone nearly jumped at Sunset’s sudden perky attitude as Twilight questioned her girlfriend out of curiosity. “What is it Sunset?” Sunset raised her finger while baring her knowing smirk. “I may have something that will help Sonata learn how to read like how it helped me.” Some time later, the whole gang was now sitting around at the couch from within Sunset’s apartment. As they were waiting, Sunset was upstairs searching through her dresser, looking for a certain item for Sonata. For each item Sunset took out that was not what she was looking for, she’ll throw them behind her while Pinkie Pie caught each one like it was some kind of fun game. “No… no… no… oh so that’s where it is—but not what I’m looking for!” After a few more minutes of digging, Sunset finally found the item she was looking for. “A-ha! There it is!” Sunset cheered as she took out the item in question. The item itself was a small blue book with a title that said: “Beginner’s Spelling Book - Volume One.” She clutched the book to her chest and then went downstairs to join her friends. Ignoring everyone’s curious looks (and a hug pile of her stacked things that Pinkie caught.), Sunset went over to Sonata and handed the book over to her. “Here you go Sonata, this is what I used to learn how to read!” Sunset said with a smile. Sonata examined the book for a bit and then looked up to her friend with her confused expression. “Um… what is this?” “What you have here, is the Beginner’s Spelling Book,” Sunset replied. Rainbow looked over with her eyes furrowed. “Um… isn’t this thing is made for kids?” Sunset coughed nervously as a sudden shade of red formed on her cheeks. “Well… yes, but since I was new to this world at the time, I figured I need to start something simple.” She then smiled. “This book has simple guidelines of reading and writing and there are a bunch of activities throughout this book for you do as you learn about reading. Like fill in the blacks, word matching, multiple choices and so on. This is like homework, but they’re very simple and fun.” “How can homework be simple and fun?” Rainbow asked with a look of disbelief. “Silly Dashie,” Pinkie interjected cheerfully. “You can make fun out of anything you do! Like taking out the garbage while rollerblading backwards and balanced it with your head.” “…I’m pretty sure that only you would find that fun,” Rainbow replied dryly with an eye roll. “Well I think it’s a wonderful idea Darling!” said Rarity. “A simple yet effective way to learn with a book like that.” Twilight nodded. “I agree, sometimes just by using a simple activity book like that will help someone like Sonata to learn to read and write.” Sunset smiled as the rest of the girls nodded in approval before facing Sonata again. “This book helped me a lot! So I think it will help you too!” “You… think this will help me?” Sonata spoke softly. Sunset smiled. “Absolutely, as long as you work really hard, I believe you can do it!” Sonata wasn’t feeling so sure at first. Everything they’ve done since after school ended in a failure. She truly doubted that she will ever learn to read and regretted ever agreeing to Trixie’s crazy bet. But after seeing all of her friends smiling and nodding at her in encouragement, Sonata felt that maybe she could give it a shot. Sonata gave Sunset her small smile. “Okay Sunset, I’ll give it a try. But… can I try this at home?” Sunset nodded. “Sure, I don’t see why not. You worked very hard today!” “Yeah, and all the teaching we did really made me hungry,” Pinkie added. “So let’s say we’ll go to Sugarcube Corner for a round of milkshakes! My treat!” Rainbow pumped her fist in excitement. “Aw yeah! Now you’re talking Pinks! Let’s go!” Everyone spoke up in approval as they were heading out of Sunset’s apartment and onto the streets of Canterlot. As Sonata was following behind them, she looked at the book that Sunset gave her and frowned. Is this book truly the key of helping her learning to read and make her the reading pro before the end of this month? Sonata wasn’t certain, but if this book was the same book that helped Sunset out in the past, then she will give it a shot. …after getting herself some delicious strawberry milkshake that is.