The adventure began today with his grandmother. Evie wrote out some three-letter word families (think “hat” “sat” “mat” “rat”) and helped Simon sound them out. He’s been able to sound out each letter for months now, maybe even close to a year, but he couldn’t blend the sounds to form words. Well, today he did. Then he did it again for me when I arrived to pick him up. Then he wrote some words for me to guess, too. Evie tells me that the whole thing began and remained a big game for him.
I doubt he’ll be sitting down and reading a book to himself any time soon, but today’s development still struck me as momentous.
According to all the literature, by the way, it’s not. I’ve known for some time that when a child begins reading doesn’t matter in the long run. So why does it seem so momentous? Here’s what I’ve come up with:
- It makes me less concerned about kindergarten. Since so much of each day is dedicated to reading and/or reading readiness, it’s good to know that 75% of Simon’s time won’t be spent in a struggle;
- I’ve known he was close, and an irrational part of me was eager to see him focus and get started. Matt admits to similar irrational and possibly unhealthy feelings;
- The biggie: Matt and I are both voracious readers and live in and by the written word. Sometimes I grow tired of hearing myself begin so many sentences with “I read in X that…” and wonder how many listening to me are ready to tape over my mouth or throw something at me. But I can’t help myself; I’m a huge reader, and I mostly read non-fiction. It excites me beyond words that Simon is on the way to having a world of words open to him.
The other thing Simon did today? Played a little Pickle-ball (tennis variation) with Evie. I saw some pretty serious forehands and the beginnings of a backhand. This is damning with faint praise indeed, but Simon at 5 is already better at tennis than I ever got after taking lessons three times. Pretty soon he’ll be a better swimmer, too. I still have the edge on drawing and running, though, so it’s all good.
Seriously, though, if this is how five is going to be for the next nine months, it’s definitely going to be the best year ever.
I hope they are all the best year ever.