When did she learn to read?

Megan came up to me the other day and said, "Look Mom! I wrote apple!" There are the paper were three perfect little letters.....A P L. Oh my goodness, she actually sounded that out? But wait...Emilee is the reader in the family, Megan's just a little preschooler, she doesn't read, right?

Ha! Boy, what an unobvservant mommy I have been. I sat down with a few books to spend some quality time with Megan. That girl can READ...no thanks to Mommy. I certainly haven't been aware. She read things like "Pam has a hat." and "Spot is black", although she said Spot is Blask, but hey, I don't blame her...stupid English language and it's changing sounds.


It always amazes me how different children are. I've always been aware of that, but sometimes something comes along that just really drives home the point. I guess Emilee was about this same age when she started reading but do you ever notice that your oldest is always older? Even when a younger sibling becomes the same age the oldest once was, they're not as old as the oldest one was at that age somehow. Was that even English? Did that make sense?

When did Megan become old enough to read? I was so busy trying to teach Emilee how to read and become a little more "fluent" at it, that I completely neglected the fact that Megan is now old enough to begin. When we read together she never asked to read and I always assumed she wasn't ready. Anyway, back to how kids are different.

Emilee learned all of her letters and the sounds they make pretty early on. She knew them all extremely well and she knew most of them before she even turned 4. However, it took us quite a bit of practice to learn how to blend words together. A sample reading session would go something like this:

Emilee: C = Cuh A = Aaaaa T = Tuh Which obviously spells "Cuhahtuh!!!"

We worked a lot of figuring out how to blend those sounds. Megan on the other hand, seems to have no problem blending sounds (seeing as she figured it out on her own). Perhaps part of the reason I didn't realize she was ready though was the fact that she doesn't even know all of her sounds yet (maybe half?). So what she can read is quite limited, but man, if she knows those sounds she doesn't even seem to have to sound all of them out. We were reading the word "kids" and she started by making the "r" sound. I corrected her and told her it was a K. She immediately shouted "KIDS!" No need to individually sound them all out and figure out how they go together. She's just amazing me right now. I love this age when they are figuring things out and learning these new skills that prepare them for school. I'd just spent so much time watching Emilee do them, that I forgot that Megan was entering that phase. And by the way, when did I get old enough to have TWO readers in the family?

Which brings me to another thought. I've always classified my children to a degree. I mean, I don't have favorites or "good" children vs. "bad", but we've had some stereotypes. Emilee was the "thinker"....she asks 100 questions a day or more and analyzes everything. She was the one who loved to learn how to write and do her "schoolwork", etc. Megan, on the other hand, always seemed to be more physical and rough and tumble. She had little desire to sit around for long periods doing "work" and more desire to be doing, doing, doing. I guess more focus was placed on her physical feats. The thought occurred to me that perhaps I don't tell her how smart she is as often as I tell Emilee. So yesterday, when we were cuddling and reading I told her how incredibly smart she was. She beamed at me, and said, "And Brave! Don't forget Brave!"

She may be smart, but she's still rough and tumble too!