life's little details: kids

I think we all take reading for granted. We do it all day long and don't even realize it. Now think of this through the eyes of a toddler or Pre-K child. There are words and sentences EVERYWHERE and they have NO idea what they say. Image seeing all the road signs, advertisements on billboards, words on cereal boxes, soup cans, words on TV....this could go on forever....and not knowing how to read them. Then one day you begin learning and start seeing words all around that you know....then being able to put those words together to read. I don't remember learning to read as a child but I am living it through Emma. Emma has learned the alphabet, she knows what letter words start with and she can even figure out how to spell some 3 letter words like: tub, mug, hug, hat, cat. So I figured she had the tools to learn to read. Recently during a trip to Barnes and Nobel I found Pre-Readers that focus on sight words and word play. I read the directions and was a little unsure how fast she would catch on. Boy was I shocked. It has been about 2 weeks now and she knows how to read and recognize about 10 sight words and has read the first 5 books. The great thing is she is seeing these words other places and she recognizes them. Each book focuses on 2 words and the sentences are repetitive. Then there are pictures for the other words. For example the first book teaches "a" and "and". The book goes like this:

A hat and a rabbit (the picture on the page is of a magician with a rabbit coming out of a hat)

A hat and a bird (there is a bird coming out of the hat)

A hat and a frog (same thing...a hat with a frog coming out of it)

Get the idea???? There are also flash cards with each of the words. I taped them to the door and she practices them.

I can't even explain how I felt when I heard her reading the books on her own. I was so proud and suddenly overwhelmed with the fact that she is no longer a baby and no longer a toddler...she will be in kindergarten in 6 months. WOW!!!