Abby is reading!!

What's really funny about all this is that, in the two days before this happened, I read two separate articles about children learning to read. They were both talking about how direct instruction of reading isn't always necessary, and that merely providing children with answers to their questions about language (what letter is that, what is that word, what sound does that letter make) and reading to them as much as possible will, in most instances, lead to the child learning to read herself.

And she did--in OfficeMax, of all places.

We were waiting for a fax to send, and the girls were wandering around the copy center area. The trash can was labeled TRASH, and Abby went over, looked at it, and sounded out, "T-R-A-S-H." We haven't done any letter stuff at all in weeks, so this came seemingly out of nowhere. "Good job," I said. "But when we see an S and an H together, they make a new sound, SH."

Abby looked at the letters again. "T-R-A-SH."

"That's right," I said, thinking she would move on to something else now. But instead, she sounded them out again, faster, but with the sounds all still separated. But then she stood up a little straight and said, "Oh--trash. Trash!!!"

After dinner that night, we started writing more words. Or, more accurately, *she* started writing them as I spelled them out for her, and then she'd sound them out. We did all the three-letter "ap" words (cap, sap, zap, etc.) and a few "ob" words (Bob, cob). Then tonight she asked to do more, so we did a few "at" words before she got bored and wanted to move on. But tonight's words came much more quickly and easily to her--she ran the sounds together much more readily.

She is so proud of herself, and I must admit I got a little teary watching my little baby read. On top of all this is the fact that we've started doing a children's catechism with her in the evenings, and she's already memorized all the answers to the first seven questions. That little sponge of a mind is working overtime these days!