Triumph!

Logan LOVES books.  He will spend hours looking at them, and would happily make me read to him all day long if he could.  Even as a baby he would spend hours looking at books.  I remember when I was pregnant with Annie, had no energy, and he knew it.  We literally spent most of our day reading books for the last three months because he took full advantage of the fact that I wanted to sit on the couch...he was only 16 months old!  When he was two we bought a set of magnetic letters for the fridge, and a foam set for the tub.  Then we only put out the letters of his name.  We didn't push it at all, but it took an incredibly long time for him to recognize those letters.  Memorizing the alphabet took forever as well, again without pushing; I really think it was difficult for him.  Annie picked it up a lot quicker without any help from me; the comparison is only to reaffirm that it was difficult for Logan, not that Annie is smarter or anything like that.  She's not anyway.  They both have strengths that the other does not have.  :) 

So, a few months ago I felt impressed that it was time to start focusing on reading with Logan.  We usually spend a few minutes each day with letters and their sounds, and sometimes we try to sound out words together.  Once he is tired or frustrated with it, we stop.  He and Jim have special reading time together some evenings.  They even picked out some of the simplest library books to read together and they are OFF LIMITS to everyone else.  Progress hasn't been fast, but it's always been a positive time for Logan.  I can tell it's really hard for him to understand the letters and their sounds.  Lately he keeps telling me when he recognizes a letter sound in a word he hears or says.  "Mom, snake starts with S!"  That's been awesome to hear.  Then, yesterday, he had a triumphant moment.  He was sitting on the floor staring at a bucket that had writing on it while I fed the baby.  I heard him saying something very slowly over and over, but wasn't really paying attention until he asked me about it.  "Mom what does that say?"  Then I realized he'd been sounding out the word "all".  He'd tried so hard and had read it all by himself!  He's sounded out words with us before and with our prompting, but this was his first attempt to read something on his own.  Well done bud!