Sounding it out

I haven't had high expectations for Alex for kindergarten. He won't turn five until June, and we're not big on formalized early education in our house, preferring instead to enjoy lots of books and follow our boys' interests. I figured if Alex got a good start on reading, covered some very basic math concepts, and had fun learning about the fascinating world we live in, we'd call that a very successful kindergarten year. And we wouldn't be starting him in school until next fall. Alex, apparently, has his own ideas about when he should learn what.

He surprised me by bringing me the book I had purchased to use to teach him to read, and requesting that we start NOW. He's known his letters and the sounds they make for quite a while, but he couldn't blend the sounds into words. So when we sat down with the book and he started sounding things out, I'm not sure who was more surprised ... Alex or me!


He loves reading, and requests that we practice nearly every day. We do most of our work on a small whiteboard, but he's also reading some little readers I got just for him. (Not everything should be a hand-me-down from big brother, right?) When he reads the little book by himself, he gets to put a sticker into his book. He loves that, and I love seeing another one of my boys becoming entranced with the wonderful world of reading!