My daughter is teaching herself to read!
Feb. 11th, 2003 01:06 pmI... I'm stunned. I mean, this is really weird.
I'm home with the kid alone tonight, and it's my duty to find a way to feed her. Normally, I'd throw together a batch of home-made pasta sauce and some store-bought noodles, but she had spaghetti at the restaurant last night and I do try to vary her diet. It's too late to make mile-high potatoes (I could microwave them, I guess, but then they come out steamed, not baked, and that's just yucky), and for some reason my mind never settled on the obvious things, like a hotdog or maybe some grilled cheese sandwiches. No, I have to go for the "real thing," a dinner, and so I start tossing together a tuna noodle casserole. Yeah, she'll eat that.
While I'm boiling the noodles, Kouryou-chan comes up with a book. This in itself is not unusual. She loves books. She will sit and read them to herself, but she's just looking at the pictures, although there are a few she can recite to herself, like A Search For Meaning, by Michel Gagne', and listening to her recite lines like "And he went through INSANITY! (at least twice)" is quite the giggle.
But she's only three. At a garage sale a couple of months ago, we scored a complete set of Hooked On Phonics for five dollars. These things usually go for, like, forty of fifty US dollars, so we snagged it, figuring we'll keep it for when she's ready.
So in she walks. "Daddy? What's this book?" It was something by Stasheff, Her Majesty's Wizard, I think. Instead of telling her right out, I said, "It's full of secrets."
"What secrets?"
"Secrets only people who know how to read can know."
"Oh." She flipped through the pages. "When I learn how to read, I can read the secrets?"
"Yes, you can," I said.
"Oh." Then she wandered off. After sliding the casserole into the oven, I come out into the living room and Kouryou-chan is sitting next to the stereo. She has the very first Hooked on Phonics tape in and she is working her way systematically through the first pack of symbol/sound pairs, the vowels and short letter combinations.
"Whatcha doing?"
"I'm learning to read, Daddy."
"Why?"
"Because I want to read the secrets!"
And she would not be distracted from her task. I waited until the tape was done and then offered to play her favorite music, which you can clearly read down in my "current music" tag. I want her to learn to read, but at three her attention span is twenty minutes at best. I'm trying not to push her too hard. Omaha and I are doing our damnedest not to "superkid" her: we've surrounded her with regular kid toys for the most part, but she wants to keep up with the adults with whom she spends the bulk of her day so she's actually putting in her own effort to do it.
I'm home with the kid alone tonight, and it's my duty to find a way to feed her. Normally, I'd throw together a batch of home-made pasta sauce and some store-bought noodles, but she had spaghetti at the restaurant last night and I do try to vary her diet. It's too late to make mile-high potatoes (I could microwave them, I guess, but then they come out steamed, not baked, and that's just yucky), and for some reason my mind never settled on the obvious things, like a hotdog or maybe some grilled cheese sandwiches. No, I have to go for the "real thing," a dinner, and so I start tossing together a tuna noodle casserole. Yeah, she'll eat that.
While I'm boiling the noodles, Kouryou-chan comes up with a book. This in itself is not unusual. She loves books. She will sit and read them to herself, but she's just looking at the pictures, although there are a few she can recite to herself, like A Search For Meaning, by Michel Gagne', and listening to her recite lines like "And he went through INSANITY! (at least twice)" is quite the giggle.
But she's only three. At a garage sale a couple of months ago, we scored a complete set of Hooked On Phonics for five dollars. These things usually go for, like, forty of fifty US dollars, so we snagged it, figuring we'll keep it for when she's ready.
So in she walks. "Daddy? What's this book?" It was something by Stasheff, Her Majesty's Wizard, I think. Instead of telling her right out, I said, "It's full of secrets."
"What secrets?"
"Secrets only people who know how to read can know."
"Oh." She flipped through the pages. "When I learn how to read, I can read the secrets?"
"Yes, you can," I said.
"Oh." Then she wandered off. After sliding the casserole into the oven, I come out into the living room and Kouryou-chan is sitting next to the stereo. She has the very first Hooked on Phonics tape in and she is working her way systematically through the first pack of symbol/sound pairs, the vowels and short letter combinations.
"Whatcha doing?"
"I'm learning to read, Daddy."
"Why?"
"Because I want to read the secrets!"
And she would not be distracted from her task. I waited until the tape was done and then offered to play her favorite music, which you can clearly read down in my "current music" tag. I want her to learn to read, but at three her attention span is twenty minutes at best. I'm trying not to push her too hard. Omaha and I are doing our damnedest not to "superkid" her: we've surrounded her with regular kid toys for the most part, but she wants to keep up with the adults with whom she spends the bulk of her day so she's actually putting in her own effort to do it.
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