Reading

Brielle has known the alphabet and letter sounds for a long time, but hasn't been interested in learning to read.  I've tried from time to time to have her read, but she would just guess at the words and get distracted.  James and I believe in the studies that show that it doesn't matter how early you learn to read, (what young kids read usually isn't life changing!) but the love of reading is what matters in the future. 

I heard about Bob books, and finally got them from the library.  Brielle got very excited when she learned that she could read the whole book by herself.  Right now she is loving her new found ability to read.  I am again wondering who came up with this awful English language.  It is hard to explain why 'the' just says the and to sight read it and don't try to sound it out.  And why does 'a' say 'uh' when it is by itself, but 'aaa' or 'ay' when combined with other letters?  That is just how our language works.  And, we're just at the beginning of all those crazy rules!
Ethan is so excited by Brielle's achievement, that he also takes a turn 'reading' to me every morning.  He pretends to sound out the words and loves it!  He doesn't know any letters of the alphabet yet, but is finally starting to sing them when singing the ABC song.  He used to sing the entire song using only the letters A and B.  Now THAT is impressive.