Reading

Lately Penelope has taken to spelling and "reading" nearly everything she can. She spelled out the letters/numbers in Bryan's car's license plate and told me it said "red car".

So I took some video of her and her book today. What this video highlights isn't Penelope's reading skills (since she's not actually reading) but it does demonstrate some rather impressive pre-reading skills. She understands that letters make up words and that words describe pictures. She is also beginning to understand that letters are made up of sounds and you can put them together to make words. She may actually recognize some of the words, but I haven't tried to write them without their picture associations, so I'm not positive. I wouldn't expect for her to be able to recognize many, if any, words by sight at this age. It would be crazy-early.

She needs all of these skills before she starts to really read, and I am very happy and proud that she has them. It doesn't mean she's a genius, but it does mean that she excels in this particular area of development. She'll probably read early and then trip over her own feet the rest of her life (she still runs rather strangely). She can't be good at everything!