Reading

Brock has been my little reader for quite sometime and I couldn't be more thrilled!  When Brock turned to I set a goal to teach him his alphabet. Within the moth he knew it. He knew upper and lower case letters and the sounds each letter made. VICTORY!  a few months latter we were in Utah visiting family when my brother was saying the alphabet (in alphabet order) when Brock looked at him like he was crazy. Brock did not know alphabet order. or the ABC song. because I didn't use that method to teach him. But on the flight home he started singing the ABC song. (I never sang the ABC song) I asked him "where did you learn that" and he said "Uncle Matt".
Okay so ABC's out of the way next was to learn words. I started incorporating learning time into our daily/ nightly reading time. I would pause every now and then in a story and point to a word, tell him what the word was and then we would spell out the word. After a few months I he started pointing out words to me!  At first I just thought well he's heard these stories so often that he just knows the story. I doubt he really knows the words. But a few days later I picked up a few new books and Brock started pointing out a ton of different words on every page.  I then started letting him read the parts he knew. I would pause and he would read the word I pointed to.
when he was half way through his third year he was reading to me. most of his books. Part of it was memorization the other half he really did know.by age 4 he was reading every word. Don't get me wrong there are still a few words here and there that he needs help with. But for the most part he is reading. I love coming into a room and seeing him reading books to his brother. Love my little reader. I had to record him reading a few books the other day just because I didn't want to forget what his little voice sounded like at this age.  Love that the first thing he does at preschool is read the board to find out what they are doing that day and gets all excited to learn. (his teacher loves this too) He is constantly telling me when someones birthday is because he reads it on the school posters.  love that Nicholas is learning to love books by watching his big brother. Oh the simple joys that fill my heart as I watch them grow!