Breakthrough into Books

 Because I was a reading teacher who worked with frustrated readers daily, and because I don't feel like I can hyper-focus on any one area of their development, and because I believe in letting them be little, I haven't pressured any of our kids to read before first grade. I've been particularly restrained with the twins because they already compare themselves to each other and I frequently am brainstorming ways to quell competition.

All three kids have had great kindergarten teachers and they live in a print-rich home with literacy traditions and educated parents, and they are smart, and I feel like that is enough.

That is not to say that when they pick it up I'm not totally celebrating inside. For some reason, as with other newfound talents, because A and E are twins, this breakthrough into books is twice as amazing. Today as I worked in one room, I listened to A and E read to D in another room. They weren't reading decodable pattern books. They weren't even reading books on their independent level. They were just going for it with the books that theywere interested in.

 It was breakthrough kind of day and E plowed right through The Giving Tree. 

There is nothing cuter than hearing this text in a child's voice.

 (Here's when A started to tire of the attention E was getting.

Classic, oft-repeated twin occurrence.

"Take a picture of my ring, Mom! I got it for being good in class!")

Not to be outdone, tenacious A whipped out How Do Dinosaurs Say I Love You to prove her own abilities. 

On days like these can't you just hear Natalie Merchant singing: "These are the days you'll remember, never before and never since . . ." I love these days.