Hooked On Phonics!

Ok .. everyone tells you how wonderful parenthood is and "they" always talk about the joys of watching your children learn and grow. I never paid much attention to prior to having children but "they" were right.

Carter has been curious about reading for a long while now (about a year) but tonight was the first breakthrough moment (like on Star Trek when they made First Contact with the Vulcans). He knows his alphabet and the sounds of all the letters. He's learned to spell words like his name and several superheroes and he can write anything he can spell. All very cool things and I loved watching each of those skills develop BUT tonight he figured out how to sound out words. NOTHING has been as cool as that moment was tonight.

We had just started reading Bambi Grows Up. He opened the book and pointed at the word 'deep' and asked how to read it. He asked what sound does 'e' make. I had to tell him the sound of 'ee' and then he slowly put it all together. When he read the word he didn't even know what he had said. It was a beautiful moment and we were both so happy and excited we hollered for Alice to come and see his new talent. With much prompting he read 'Bambi' 'Grows' and 'Up'. He needed much less prompting for 'Jack' and 'and'. I had to tell him what 'the' was and I think 'beanstalk' was a bit much for me to hope for.

I'm verklempt.