It is amazing to observe all of the different skills that Ava has to master in order to learn how to read and write. The nature of signs and symbols, moving from left to right, syllables and phonemes, and on and on. All of a sudden she seems determined to do it, and has had a dramatic increase in interest in writing her letters and spelling words—we do this a lot in the car—she asks me how you spell a word, and we sound it out together. The other day, it was “lavender,” which is a long word, but has some easy sounds in it to decipher. She managed to sound it out all the way through. This is interesting compared with 6 months ago, when she really only identified the first sound of a word and was unable to tease out nearly all of the other sounds or letters in it. And her sudden interest in writing letters other than those in her name is interesting. She was writing a whole bunch of stuff on paper and when she called me over I was astonished to see that she had been practicing letters. Until now, the whole writing thing was sort of “eh” for her. Just not interested (other than of course A-V-A). Now, it is all she wants to do. I guess the whole idea of written communication has finally come together in her consciousness, and it has been deemed interesting and valuable.
We recently pulled out The Minpins by Roald Dahl (I have been reading it incorrectly as The Minipins), and I was reluctant to read it to her as it has a big scary monster in it that has to be vanquished, but I gave it a shot. She was transfixed. It is a long book, and takes at least an hour to read, but she sits still for the whole thing, staring pretty much slack-jawed at the book while I read. Looks like we are able to advance to books with more suspense and tension. The best part was when I was reading the scary bit for the first time. There is a quiet “what is that noise” sort of moment, and then there is a SUDDEN SCARY BIG NOISE!!! moment, and when I read that part with appropriate dramatic panache, she pretty much jumped a mile. I was concerned that I had frightened her, but then we both completely cracked up. Good fun. Roald Dahl is great.
We recently pulled out The Minpins by Roald Dahl (I have been reading it incorrectly as The Minipins), and I was reluctant to read it to her as it has a big scary monster in it that has to be vanquished, but I gave it a shot. She was transfixed. It is a long book, and takes at least an hour to read, but she sits still for the whole thing, staring pretty much slack-jawed at the book while I read. Looks like we are able to advance to books with more suspense and tension. The best part was when I was reading the scary bit for the first time. There is a quiet “what is that noise” sort of moment, and then there is a SUDDEN SCARY BIG NOISE!!! moment, and when I read that part with appropriate dramatic panache, she pretty much jumped a mile. I was concerned that I had frightened her, but then we both completely cracked up. Good fun. Roald Dahl is great.
