Runaway O’s, Lonely I’s, and Sweet T

Sounds like a motley cast of characters, eh?  In actuality, it’s just a list of the letters that my little boy can pick out of a storybook.  Until recently, he has been more interested in numbers, counting, building, climbing, pretending, and solving problems than he has been in letters and words.  But recently, with the advent of our nightly reads of Swiss Family Robinson, his first chapter book, with pictures only on every other page, he’s been spending more time looking at the words as I read. 

At naptime today, he pointed at the word “One” and said “Run-a-way O!”  He then proceeded to pick out Mommy’s favorite letter “Sweet T!” (Yes, I grew up in the South, and yes, it’s terribly hard to find a good sweet tea up here.  When I do find one, I often share a taste or two with him; it feels like sharing a bit of my heritage.  So Mommy’s favorite letter is obviously T.)

Tonight, we added “I.”  We nicknamed him the lonely I, because he often stands alone.  I think we’re going to enjoy learning to read together.  And even though there are a thousand and one electronic products that could help us if this doesn’t work, I’m tickled that we’re learning to read the old fashioned way — by picking letters out of a story, one by one.

Maybe tomorrow we’ll dig out the Bob books and see if we can make some progress reading about Mat and his cat, who sat.