Reading and Writing

I have a great memory of my niece Katie reading a book to me for the first time. As I helped her sound out words, I thought about how much fun it would be to teach my own children to read one day. Well, the time has come and it hasn't disappointed.

It began when they were two, on one day when things just clicked. We were playing with magnetic letters on a white board. I would write some letters with a pen and they would find the same letters as magnets and put them below the written word. Then I showed them how to sound out the word. Much to my surprise, they totally got the concept. I remember that the first word they read was "pat." Then we continued with a collection of "at" words. They understood that the "at" sound stayed the same and they could just swap out the first letter to make new words. This was really exciting for me. However, they were totally spent after that episode and didn't feel like "reading" again for a while. This has always been an interesting part of their development. They will very suddenly acquire a new skill and then the skill will lie dormant for a while before it really becomes part of their life. The same thing happened with walking, talking, and other developmental milestones. They really aren't interested in doing something until their brain is ready to learn it.

So I waited for them to become interested in "reading" again. A couple of months after the initial breakthrough, the interest surfaced again. They developed a sort of team effort, where Lucas would be quick to sound out the letters of each word, while Ethan would be the one to determine the word those letters made. I think they each were excited about their special skill and worked together beautifully to decipher words.

Spelling was another skill that came about around the same time. I would ask them how to spell a word and was surprised at how much they could do in their heads. The magnetic letters came in handy too. I remember one night when Ethan was really excited to spell and would jump down from the dinner table to spell several of the words having to do with dinner. He sounded out and wrote (with magnetic letters) the word "spoon." That blew me away.

As this was developing, Ethan started to write letters. He had a remarkable ability to think of a letter and write it quite accurately on paper. I usually didn't have to show him how to do a letter - he would just figure it out through trial and error. Soon he was writing his own name. And boy does he love writing his name. I think the writing is adorable -the letters are huge and often in random order throughout the page. But make no mistake, there is an E, a T, an H an A, and an N somewhere on the paper. Lucas has shown less interest in writing, but has a few favorite letters he loves to practice: "L" and "A."

More recently, they have begun to recognize some sight words and Ethan is starting to watch the words instead of the pictures when we read to him. Lucas is surprising me by demonstrating an amazing use of context as he reads. For instance, we were doing a workbook the other day and he knew the exercise was about colors. So when he saw a word that started with "R" he knew it was the word red. When the word started with "P" he knew it was purple. That was pretty cool.

I just love watching them learn and develop. There are no goals or timetables, so I just wait until they show an interest in something and then try to run with it. I'm fascinated with watching how a little person learns and develops. As fun as it was to watch them hit milestones such as crawling and walking, I think I am even more excited to observe these cognitive developments. It is such a cool process, made even more interesting by the opportunity to watch two kids of the same age learn in their own way, at their own pace. Awesome.