She broke the code

I suppose she's actually been ready for awhile now, but I finally got around to bringing home a set of those unattractive Bob Books for Fiona. Day before yesterday we got out book one and took a look at it. Sure enough, with very little introduction from me, Fiona proceeded to read the first book of the set to me-- twice.

Today she showed her new trick to Ian. Whereas I had encouraged her to stay in book one until I could point to any word on any page at any time and she could immediately name it, Ian saw that she had it down cold. He let her work her way through books two and three this afternoon. She was like a kid in a candy store. She wanted to read more and more. She didn't want to stop for lunch. She wanted to pick up immediately afterward. Even Fiona acknowledges that we aren't reading these books for the engaging plots, but clearly the plot is not what makes these particular books so alluring to her.

This means we can actually pick up a number of simple early readers for Fiona now-- some that, unlike Bob Books, I actually LIKE. She's off and running. She's very excited, and rightly so. Without massive amounts of TV, computers, flashcards, drills, worksheets, or electronic games, she has begun to break the code. Of her own accord, in her own time, based on her experience with caring people, word play, and lots of quality children's literature, Fiona is learning to read.

There are times that the capacity of my children simply overwhelms me-- their capacity to love, to make a colossal mess, to execute deductive reasoning. Today, as I watched Fiona read to her father about Mat and Sam and some cat which insisted on sitting upon both of them, I noticed how very much she looks like Ian sometimes, and felt viscerally how wonderful it is to be a child's first teacher.