Learning to read

Brady and Brody,

I think besides watching you learn to walk,  watching you learn to read has been my most favorite milestone.  It is so fun to watch your little brains work, to see you make connections .... and fail to make connections.....  It is great for me to be able to take a step back and try to break things down into their simplest parts and try to teach you what to do with these pieces of information.  It is especially fun because even though you think I am great at everything, it turns out your mom is terrible at this!  It is hard for me to give you the proper phonetical pronunciation of each letter because quite frankly phonics is not my forte.  I can barely sound my way out of a paper bag.

Watching you start to learn to read has also been fun for me because like walking, the approach to figuring it out differs from child to child.   And as is typical with most things boys, you go about this task completely differently.  Brady, you want to know all the rules.  You want to know about sentence structure, capital vs lower case letters, what is a sight word and what is something that you should be able to sound out.  Brody, you want to memorize everything!  You do not want to have to try and sound anything out.  No matter what the word is you try and remember where you may have seen it before.  Turns out that is okay since because as Nana has said time and time again, reading is largely memorization!

Reading is freedom in so many ways. While I am a little sad that you will be able to decipher things by yourselves at some point and not need me to help you with everything, I am looking forward to the independence you will gain.  Plus, let's face it, you guys are going to LOVE having your own book lights to use at your discretion.  We are still in the early phases of learning to read but I can tell you guy are about to go from 0 to 60 very soon.  All you need is some guidance from someone who can actually help you sound out the words ;)  I can't wait to see the progress you make once school starts!

Love,
Mom