learning to read

I don't think I can adequately express in words how much joy it brings me when I see my kids learning. I am amazed by the number of times each day that I get to experience those "ah-ha" moments with them. From seemingly small things to great big accomplishments, I love that I get to be there for each of these moments.

Gavin just recently started taking his first steps, and each time he stands up and walks, he looks at me with the biggest smile I have ever seen, as he claps his pudgy little hands. I can tell that he is so proud of himself for finally figuring out this walking thing that he has been working at for months. And not only is he proud of himself, but he yearns to share that feeling with the people he loves most. As he stands there, he frantically looks around until he sees that someone has noticed his accomplishment and is waiting to cheer him on. And of course, we cheer. We cheer because he has walked, but we also cheer because we are so excited to share in his joy.

I think that, given the chance to learn naturally and at one's own pace, this excitement for learning never really goes away. When I see my older kids learning, they have just as much excitement in their eyes when they accomplish something they have been working really hard at. They have just as much of a need to share their joy with us. They are just as proud of themselves as Gavin is.

Ella has recently taught herself to read. I didn't push her, give her lessons, make her do workbooks, or require a certain amount of reading each day. She just decided she wanted to read, so we gave her access to as many books as she wanted. The kids already have many books at home, but we also went to the library often so she could pick out what she calls "reader books." She started out with the very easy books and would spend hours sounding out words. She would read street signs, flyers, store names, magazines, anything with words. If she got stuck on a word, she asked for help. She didn't like it when we would make her sound it out instead of just telling her the word she wanted to know; she was very stubborn about it. If it was a word that happened to be an exception to the basic phonetic "rules" we would explain it to her (such as the "ph" sound, or the different sounds for "c"). But we never gave her formal lessons or tested her knowledge. Sometimes she would read to herself, sometimes she wanted us to listen, and sometimes she wanted us to read to her. There were days when she would literally spend the whole day reading. It was an amazing journey. She is now at the point where she doesn't need to sound out every word; in fact, she knows most of the common words by sight. She can easily sound out the words she doesn't recognize, including ridiculously long words like dinosaur names. She has progressed beyond "reader" books and now reads storybooks, non-fiction books, newspapers (we screen the content, however), websites, grocery lists, text messages, and whatever she is interested in. She has even started asking me if she can read my novels, so I think it might be time to take a wander through the kids novels next time we go to the library.

It warms my heart every single time I walk into a room and see Ella reading a book to one of her brothers. I am so proud of her when we go to the library and she picks a book off the shelf and just starts reading it. I am so excited when Liam shows interest in learning things, because he wants to be like his big sister. I can't imagine missing out on these huge milestones! Learning to read is one of the fundamental skills, and if she can accomplish that on her own, I have complete confidence that she will be able to do anything she sets her mind to. And I firmly believe that she will chose to set her mind to more and more complicated and advanced tasks as she grows, simply because she loves to learn and she loves the feeling of accomplishing something difficult. I can't wait to see what's next!