the first r

dad, here.

we've been working a lot lately with r to help form basic literacy skills, especially around sound-letter relationships, including sounding out words when reading together. so, it was quite moving when, over the weekend, i found r looking intently at a cartridge for an electronic puzzle he was working on and sounding out the letters in the title to himself. he couldn't quite get through it, so we did it together, but i was struck by the realization that this was the first time i had seen him try to read something because he wanted to know what the words were. it was a turning point (at least for me), because i recognized that he had to have understood not only that the letters were a code for a word, but that he had the tools to break that code, and that he had the confidence to try to do it, all by himself. i am immensely proud of him.