Breakthroughs!

Dear Aunt Debbie,

Suddenly, Isabel can read.

Of course, it isn't sudden at all: we've been reading together for more than five years, pretty much since the day she was born. She's been "reading" on her own for quite some time as well, poring over picture books and graphic novels, staying up on weekend nights with her own reading light and our copy of Smile or one of the Olympians books while Eleanor whizzes through another chapter book in the bunk above and Will sings to his stuffed animals.

But, like Eleanor when she was first learning to read, Isabel has been resistant to reading out loud at home. Her fabulous kindergarten teacher sends her home every night with a book baggie containing a small pile of early readers. As part of her homework, she's supposed to read these books aloud to an adult, and practice the sight words taped to the baggie.

Cue the misery: resistance to reading aloud, complete resistance to trying to sound out any word she didn't know (or hadn't memorized). Book baggie evenings often culminated in hysterical wild guesses and dissolving onto the living room floor in boneless refusal. Needless to say, we weren't doing this every night. The level of the readers Isabel was bringing home (first A and B, then C and D) was rising based on what her teacher saw at school, but we weren't seeing any difference in her reading at home.

A few weeks ago, I went in to meet with Isabel's teacher to talk about her reading. Ms. Mazor took me through Isabel's school work, showing me how Isabel has been telling stories: first in pictures, then through accompanying words, and in her latest story, writing the words first so that she could get them down, leaving space for the pictures to come later. The writing she showed me was dramatic and vivid, and her message was clear: silly mama, you have nothing to worry about here.

Here is Isabel's story of her own birth:

For Isabel, clearly, writing and reading are happening hand in hand. The comprehension is there, and the mechanics are catching up.


The week after this meeting, Isabel picked up a note I was sending in to her teacher and read it aloud. Then it was a couple of pages of P.D. Eastman's Go, Dog. Go! Then every other page of The Cat in the Hat.

On Sunday, we sat down with The Cat in the Hat and One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish, and Isabel read 100 pages of Dr. Seuss in one sitting. (As our guest blogger/kindergarten teacher Clara noted when Eleanor was learning to read, some of those early readers are weirdly long.)

Her mom and her dad and her sister are so delighted.

Love, Annie