Catherine made a neat discovery this evening while we were reading bedtime stories. She discovered a very powerful word - the word "I". Not only is it a letter, but it's a word all on it's own too. How cool is that!
We are spending the week at the Unschoolers Winter Waterpark Gathering in Ohio (which is *AWESOME* by the way!). We brought a few new books to read while we're here, because we don't go anywhere without books. Cameron brought Fablehaven to read on his own, Catherine chose Chicka Chicka Boom Boom, which is her current favorite book. We also brought the Faraway Tree series from home. And both of the kids wanted to get the Skippyjon Jones books to bring. We all love Skippyjon Jones, so I surprised them with several Skippyjon Jones books and a Skippyjon Jones stuffed animal. Skippyjon was the favorite the last couple of nights, but not tonight.
Cameron was down in the arcade with a friend. Dave went down the street to the store because we already used up the 5 gallons of drinking water we brought from home. Catherine and I found ourselves with a little "girl time" on our hands. We danced around the hotel room in our pj's for a while, had a snack, then settled into bed to read some books. She picked Chicka Chicka Boom Boom. We read it through just like we've done dozens of times, but tonight she noticed the alphabet in the front and the back of the book. She started looking at them and pointing out the letters that are in her name, then other letters that she knew. She talked about which ones were big and which ones were little. Then she noticed that the big "I" didn't have the serifs on it. We talked about how sometimes the big I has those little lines on the top and bottom and sometimes it doesn't and talked about how without the serifs the big "I" looks just like the little "L". We talked about those letters for a while longer and then I noticed something different about the way she was looking at them. She was really studying them, and then there was this sudden *explosion* of understanding. I don't know what the exact trigger was, but I could tell she just *got it*. She understood what I was doing when I read to her. WOW! That realization was so POWERFUL for her, and the amazement in her eyes was absolutely priceless.
She closed her book and studied the front. Suddenly those letters "Chicka Chicka Boom Boom" had *MEANING* to her. They were *WORDS*. She ran her finger across them over and over, saying the words again and again, imprinting them in her mind. I just watched her for a while, then she started playing with the words and I joined in. We covered up the "m" in "Boom" and that made a totally new word! What a discovery! She covered up every single letter in each word and wanted to know what it said *NOW*.
I told her that that "I" that she was looking at earlier was a word too. I told her it said "I" as in "I went to the store". She repeated that phrase over and over, letting it roll around in her mouth, then *CLICK*...another light bulb went on. I could *SEE* it and it was amazing! I happened to have the book I was reading lying on the table next to the bed, so I picked it up and showed her how in my book the big "I" had the lines. She gasped and said "Mommy! They're EVERYWHERE!!" She sat there for a good 15 minutes flipping through my book and pointing out every single "I" she could find. ("There's another one! And another one! Look, Mommy! There's one on this page too!") She couldn't get enough! Then she noticed a lower case "i"...and another...and another. She noticed there was an "i" in the middle of the word "Chicago" and wanted to know what it said. Then she wanted to know what words followed that word "I", so I read those sentences to her and she repeated them, running her finger over the words as she did.
Right about that time, Dad returned from the store. She yelled "Daddy, Daddy! I want to show you something!" and proceeded to show him how she could read the words "Chicka Chicka Boom Boom" on the front of her book, and the word "I" in my book as well. Within a few minutes she had moved on and started working on the jigsaw puzzle we brought with us. It was such a *BIG* moment, yet she took it in stride. I, however, am still reeling from the "bigness" of it.
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