Snow days meant a lot of time outdoors romping (and then crying when
little feet began to freeze) but it also meant a lot of time INSIDE
with a little person that rapidly got "boreder and boreder." And
then...with no teaching from me, it came. The black marks in an old Dick and Jane primer finally fell into place, and "Go, Jane, go" was a mystery no more.
What
I find so amazing about Flipper's ability to slowly and laboriously
pick her way through what might quite possibly be the most maddening
books ever written is that it came from within her, set on a foundation
of storytelling, art, music, form-drawing (straight and curved lines)
and creating pictures with words. She hasn't received any traditional
instruction in learning to read, but a whole lot of peripheral work. It
has been a little hard for me, who learned to read so young, to NOT
jump in and buy her books and workbooks and sit at the kitchen table
with her night after night, encouraging her to "sound it out" (do they
even do that anymore?) and basically try to NOT jump on the
earlier-is-better bandwagon, and while I had faith this this method
would, sooner or later work, well, to actually SEE it was amazing. And
while I found reading Dick and Jane
aloud more than I could take, for Flipper, they have been the perfect
books to start with. It is a lot of work, she becomes exhausted from
the sheer effort involved and yet sticks with it until the 4 page
chapter she is on is finished. And then we go back outside to chip away
at the ice on our deck, or something equally as pointless and fun.
As
she has aged, one of the ten jillion things I miss about her babyhood
is the huge developmental leaps that caused such excitement and wonder
in me, the thrill of rolling over, sitting up, the first smile, the
first step. As she got older, such leaps and accomplishments are fewer
and farther apart, the first bicycle ride, swimming, the first day of
school. Watching her really truly read, not
just recite something from memory, brought much of those early thrills
back, along with massive, chest-expanding pride. But this time, instead
of me placing the phone calls to friends and family, she did it.