and the to was
we in of
I see my it
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Learning words is big in our house at the moment.
Sight words, sounding out words, songs about letters and vowels, and lots of questions about combinations of letters and what they mean - most of which are meaningless (to me & the rest of the 'not 5 years old' world).
The fact is though, I love the whole process of watching my boy learn letters and words.
I am so keen for him to learn words so that he can read that I have to be really careful that my enthusiasm doesn't flow into pressure to get it right, that then starts a spiral of losing the sheer love of learning and wonder at realising you are seeing letters and words everywhere, and how cool that is and how you want to learn more! The teacher has emphasised more than once to me that there is to be "no pressure", and only to praise and let it come naturally - I fear she's sensing something. I know that many parents are reacting strongly to the state curriculum that is now really focused on getting 4 and 5 year olds prepared for reading (or should I say Naplan?). I can see that it there is a place for worrying that we are rushing them, and not letting nature takes its course a little more at such a tender age. One mother said to me "they have their whole life to learn to read and write" which is true and let's face it, as adults many of us are still struggling to perfect our writing skills, and reading is a craft I still work at. But such parents still seem to subscribe to the age old wisdom that its perfect to teach a foreign language and music to kids at an early age because they are like sponges and find it so much easier to learn ...so why not reading ?
I have loved reading for as long as I can remember, and my life has been punctuated by periods of intense reading and some life changing books. It is a love that has kept me company as a young child through to adulthood and continues to -it has created friendships and been the source of wonderful conversations. An ideal holiday is one where there are many good books involved. I still reread Joseph Conrad's 'Heart of Darkness' on a semi-regular basis, largely just to relive the feeling I had at 16 when I started to understand how layered narrative could be and just how brilliant literature truly was.
But I as I sit with my boy and explain how all these words are the keys to open that door of discovery, I know I have to be patient, and to accept that maybe it won't be his love, that maybe he will find joy and comfort and meaning in other things, and that, in so doing, he will teach me to see the world in different ways too.
