Reading!

Reading about "beach horses"

Beatrice can read!

Well, I know truly learning to read is a process that takes years, but Beatrice is on her way.

For the last few months, Beatrice has been doing a lot of things related to reading (as well as writing and spelling) but as I considered it, they all fell short of "real" reading.  Maybe she was reading one of those simple "The cat sat on the mat" sorts of exercises you find in Bob books.  Or "reading" a book she had heard before, where she had clearly just memorized the words.  Or she seemed to be guessing what the text said based on the pictures.

But this afternoon she sat down, opened up a new copy of Ranger Rick Jr. she had never seen before, and read an article on "Beach Horses," wild horses that live on the beaches of North Carolina.  This was the first time I was sure she was really reading, not guessing or memorizing, and real content, not just boring phonetics exercises.

In front of Beatrice, I'm careful not to make too big a deal out of it because I don't want her to feel any anxiety or turn a fun activity into a chore, but privately, I'm pretty excited.