Ready to call it...

We learned in the first few years of Edith's life that many of those milestones you're awaiting eagerly don't actually happen all at once. When does a child officially start walking? With the first unassisted step? With the first stagger across the room? When they choose to walk rather than crawl on a regular basis? What's their first word? The first purposefully uttered syllable...even if it makes no sense to an outsider? The first repeated syllable? The first recognizable snippet in their native tongue?

So, too, with reading. Edith has been conversant with her letters and their sounds for a number of years now, but we haven't yet thought of her as able to read--nor has she thought of herself that way. She has been able to slowly sound out a few words here and there for about a year, and she has mastered a handful of short sight words in kindergarten. Then last week when she was sick she proved that she could, with effort and some help, sound out slightly longer words one at a time.

But today--though it's admittedly just one more step in a gradual process--I'm ready to declare that

Edith can read!

Last week while she was out sick, her class began a new reading program, in which they each choose a book to bring home for the weekend on Thursday night. As parents we're supposed to sit down with our kids, and using a sheet of recommended activities, encourage them in an effort to make their way through the book with whatever degree of assistance they need. Then we're supposed to fill out a little sheet verifying that we worked on the book with them and checking off whether we read the book to our child, we helped the child get through it, or the child read it. We're also supposed to note which of the reading activities we completed together (e.g. practicing letter sounds, finding sight words, identifying punctuation marks, etc.).

Edith missed the first round of the program last week, but today she brought home her book, a little pamphlet she had chosen about two dogs, Biscuit and Sam. Shortly after she got off the bus, we sat down outside (it was nearly 60 degrees!) and she opened the book. She then proceeded to read the whole thing to me (that is, all six sentences or so) without assistance. She hadn't seen the book before, and she had to sound out about half the words (e.g. carry, branch, help), but she did so much more rapidly and confidently than she was doing even a week ago, and she figured them all out without any glitches. 

She even managed to find this Dick & Jane-style reader funny!, chortling at the moment when the big dog looks as though he's helping the little dog straight into a bowl of water.

Edith resolved to bring the book back to school tomorrow and get a new one for the weekend. 

What a thrilling moment...