Ready to read

Owen has known how to read the letters and the sounds for each letter for nearly a whole year now. I was so excited when he got that down that I was ready to jump right in on teaching him how to put those sounds together to make words. The few times I tried though, Owen got frustrated and stomped off saying, "I can't do it." I admit, I really had to fight the urge to force it. Just because I begged to learn to read at age 4 and have loved it ever since, doesn't mean that my firstborn is the same. All I have to do is look at this child, who looks nothing like me, and know that he's his own person. Frankly, that's who I want him to be. So I backed off.

Fast-forward to today and that same child can sound out cat, bat, mat, hat, rat, pat and sat. And I had nothing to do with it. The last couple of nights Jack has been spending a few minutes before bedtime with Owen helping him to read. He started with AT and quickly moved on to these rhyming words. I guess this is what the experts mean to wait, it will come when they are ready.