Venturing into the World of Words

Serena has started reading!

And she taught herself.

This has been so incredible to witness that I am going to journal the process of how it unfolded.  As our children have grown (I know, it's only been 4 years so far!), I have become more and more fascinated with child development...how they learn, and how they process the world they encounter.  It really is amazing how God created these little people!

3 years old

I really attribute Serena's reading to the fact that we (specifically, Jordan & I, and Serena's grandparents & great-grandparents) have read aloud to her so much.  But before you start to conjure up fantasies of our reading to Serena while in utero, the truth is, we didn't really even try to read to her much until she was like 10-12 months old.  At her first birthday, she had a collection of five books:  Eric Carle's Panda Bear, Panda Bear, What Do You Hear?, Dr. Seuss' ABC, Sandra Boynton's Moo, Baa, La La La, Dr. Seuss' The Foot Book, and a My First Word book.  So, yeah, not much.  At this age, Serena was obsessed with The Foot Book, and would always bring it to us to read to her; but she usually wouldn't stay and listen to the whole thing.  She'd watch through a couple pages, then get busy playing nearby.  I'm not sure of the source, but I'd heard/read once not to stop reading aloud to a child even when they walk away and start getting busy with something else; always assume they are still listening, because they probably are.  So, that's what we did.  As the months passed, we slowly began to expand our collection of books.  We received a book of nursery rhymes from Jordan's mom that included Old MacDonald, and Serena loved it so much that she'd open the book up to that page and beg us to sing it (she was a late talker, so her begging us would entail following us around with the open book while going, uh, uh, uh in a question-like intonation).   But she still didn't sit through entire books.  I very distinctly remember the first time Serena sat through an entire story.  It was the night before Bret was born, and Serena was 18 months old.  Jordan's Uncle Craig & Aunt Danielle had stopped in to drop off Kari & Anna (in anticipation of Bret's imminent arrival...he was already 3 days "late") on their way to FL for a cruise.  I had made a pie, and they stayed for a while that evening.  Serena brought Aunt Danielle the book Are You My Mother? by Dr. Seuss, and as Aunt Danielle began reading, I remember thinking I wished Serena had picked a different book since that one is kinda long and she'll never last through the whole thing!  But, to my amazement, she did last through the whole thing!  That was kind of a turning point for Serena's reading attention span; after that, there was a marked increase in her interest in books...which had come just in time, since I had a newborn that needed to be nursed a lot! ;)

18 months

A couple months later, we began to frequent the Frisco Library to find children's books to spruce up our collection.  After that, whenever we've moved, we've visited our new library and acquired a card as soon as we're able.  I've always loved the library, and I'm really happy to pass that along to our kids!  At first, I tried asking the children's librarian for help in picking out books.  It was pretty much hit-and-miss, though.  I really wanted to find the classics; the books that the kids would fall in love with; the stories that would shape their imaginations.  So, I started consulting the internet, and eventually Pinterest, for lists of books; and that helped me a lot in becoming an amateur children's literature enthusiast.  :)

2 1/2 years old

By the time Serena was two, she was definitely in love with books, and loved to be read to.  She was just beginning to talk, but would sit and "read" to herself anyway.  As her ability to speak developed, she began to recite her books to herself as she looked at the pages.  The older she got, the better she became at this game, and the more she appeared to enjoy it.  She would ask us to read certain books over and over because she "didn't really know it yet," which meant it wasn't completely memorized yet.  The only "reading time" we've ever instituted is right before bed, when we read a couple stories...a Bible story from either The Jesus Storybook Bible or The Big Picture Bible, and another "bedtime" storybook of the kids' choosing.  Other than that, we just try to read whenever the kids ask and we able.  If I couldn't read at a time that I was asked, I'd try to answer with a, "Yes, I can read that to you as soon as I finish xyz."

3 1/2 years old

We didn't ever teach Serena her alphabet per se.  She just figured it out.  We had a couple books with the alphabet in them:  Dr. Seuss' ABC, and another lift-the-flap alphabet book my sister Julie had sent.  She also had this little Leapfrog laptop-type toy that we let her play with in the car on longer trips; the buttons were the letters of the alphabet, and it would play alphabet games with her.  When she started singing the "Alphabet Song," we figured she probably picked it up from that.  She'd ask us sometimes about letter sounds/names, too.

1 year old

When Serena was 3 1/2, we moved 4 1/2 hours away from our families and discovered the world of audio books.  Audio books are really handy for pre-reading bookworms on long-ish car rides!!!  The library has a pretty good selection of picture books with CDs, and the narrator even tells the kids when to turn the page!  From there, we branched into audio books without picture books, starting with the classic Winnie-the-Pooh.  The British narrator even did all the voices!  It was a really cute recording, and Serena was hooked.  She started spending an hour or so every afternoon listening to the CDs.

15 months old

Around this time, I found Jim Trelease's The Read-Aloud Handbook.  I picked it up mostly because I thought the book lists in the back would be great to look through, but I ended up reading all the research and stuff that he wrote about, too.  He told a story about a child who was read aloud to a lot who eventually taught herself to read.  I found the entire book really intriguing, but especially that story and all his claims that reading aloud to kids helps them eventually learn to read.  I just didn't really understand how it could happen, but it certainly would be nice if it did!

1 1/2 years old

Shortly after Serena turned 4, as I was browsing the library shelves, I found some picture book versions of the Little House on the Prairie books.  They were simple, with really nice illustrations, and I thought it would be fun to introduce Serena to those beloved characters in this way.  She fell in love with them immediately!  A few weeks later, I mentioned that there were "big kid" books (i.e., not so many pictures!) that told lots more about Mary and Laura.  Serena wanted them right away; she was certain that she was big enough for them.  I picked up Little House in the Big Woods at the library and Serena started begging me and Jordan to read it to her from the minute we got home.  "It's okay if we have to stop!" she would say.  Somewhere near the middle of the book, we took a trip back to Iowa, so I got the audio recording of the book so she could listen to her story while I drove.  After that, she replaced her Winnie-the-Pooh listening sessions with Little House.  Of course, Little House on the Prairie and On the Banks of Plum Creek followed, though I've decided to let her just enjoy these three books of the series for now, and venture into the rest when she's a little older.

2 years old

During this time, Serena also developed a great interest in writing.  She wanted to know about the "little" letters, so I got out a magnetic alphabet set that I'd been holding on to, and we spent a couple days matching up the "big" and "little" letters.  She caught on really quickly to that.  It also gave us a chance to solidify what the letter sounds were.  Serena had already had opportunities in the past to do some letter tracing, but now she started copying free-hand.  She'd ask me to write certain words down for her, and then she'd just copy what I wrote.  After a few weeks of that, she was really confident in her letters, and she'd just ask me how to spell things and write down what I said.

4 years old

A couple months after turning 4, Serena started to show more and more understanding of words and how they worked.  She knew that we read from left to right, and that the letters represented sounds which made words.  She had a small set of words that she "knew" and would recognize them on a page, or ask me to point out where they were when she heard me say them while reading to her (i.e., "oh," "go," "come," "Mother," and "Father").  My sister-in-law Julia mentioned using the Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Days book, and Jordan's Mom said she had the book and let me borrow it.  Despite all my best intentions, Serena and I didn't open it until the end of January.  We did all of 4 or 5 lessons out of it, and then we took a trip to Iowa for a few days.  I really think those 4 or 5 lessons were the missing piece of the puzzle for Serena, because at that point she learned that the sounds that the letters represented could be strung together from left to right to sound out the word.

4 years old

While we were in Iowa, that first weekend in February (a few days after passing the 4 1/2 year mark), Serena picked up a Dick and Jane reader at my Mom's house and began to read it!  Of course, she needed help with some words; but she was actually reading it.  I was so shocked!  I knew she was getting close to figuring it out, which is why I had started the 100 Days book.  But I guess I had no idea just how close she was!

4 years old

Serena was instantly addicted to reading.  It was like she couldn't help but read any words that her eyes laid on.  She read signs, labels, captions, etc., in our day-to-day life.  Mom lent us the Dick and Jane readers, and at first Serena just read those over and over at home.  As she became more confident in her abilities, she began to branch out to the other picture books we had.  Six weeks after she had started reading, she was reading her Little House on the Prairie books.  She's also read Heidi and When We Were Very Young.

4 years old

Serena's reading is a blend of phonics and memorization.  At the beginning, she relied a lot on memory; reading familiar books, and matching up the words of the stories that she'd memorized already.  But her memory also served her well as we began helping her learn the rules of phonics.  As she'd encounter different words, we'd give her a quick explanation of the sounds, and she'd remember them amazingly well (i.e., "ch," "ou," and "ay").  I know that all our reading aloud has expanded her vocabulary, which in turn has made it easier for her to read more advanced books.

3 years old

Part of me feels a little intimidated by the fact that Serena is reading already.  I wonder how I should proceed with her education from here.  Like I said, we did very little "teaching" of the alphabet, etc.  Since we intend to homeschool, I just haven't felt the pressure to make sure Serena knew everything on the "Four-Hundred-Things-Your-Child-Should-Know-Before-Kindergarten" lists on Pinterest.  In fact, I had every intention of delaying any structured schooling for a couple more years.  But it's not just reading.  She has been able to count to 100 for about 6 months, and she does simple math (even adding in her head).  We didn't teach her those things either.  Just gave her a few pointers when she asked, and had books laying around like My First Number Book and Richard Scary's The Best Counting Book Ever.  She learned her colors and shapes in the same way.  Bret has as well, for that matter.  I really don't feel like we're ready for structured school days yet.  The kids just spend so many hours playing and coloring and reading and "helping" and arguing and working it out, jumping from one thing to the next as their imaginations and whims lead them...I hate to interrupt their early childhood carefree days.

3 years old

I'm definitely open to suggestions, particularly if anyone who reads this has had an early reader like this!  But for now I guess we'll just keep doing what we're doing.  Lots of reading.

Lots and lots of reading.