Watching my son learn to read
The first time I heard my son read out loud, it was like hearing the doors to the universe slowly swing open. As if barriers were coming down, one after another, and he’d suddenly entered a whole new realm of possibilities.
I remember how much I loved to read when I was little.
I devoured books of every genre. In elementary school, I’d often spend my allowance on Garfield, Archie, Smurfs, and Asterix comics.
I also liked anything published by La courte échelle, the spooky Frissons book series, and choose-your-own-adventuretales where it was up to me to determine the hero’s fate.
Passing the torch
It’s really special to see that my eldest, now in Grade 1, is developing a similar affinity for reading. He brings books home from school every day, with steadily increasing levels of difficulty.
Without any prompting, he’s quickly progressed from simple syllables, like ride, to words with more complex spellings and pronunciations.
When he reads to me, or when I overhear him reading to his mom while I’m making dinner, I can’t help but swell with pride. The first few times, it nearly brought tears to my eyes.
Fortunately, I don’t get quite so emotional anymore!
But there are still days when my son leaves me speechless, often with some insightful question:
Dad, why does the French word enfant start with e-n and end with a-n-t even though the syllables sound the same?
How do you answer a question like that? The French language is a minefield of inexplicable rules and exceptions!
That’s just the way it is, son.
Answers like that don’t discourage him for a second. He takes them all in stride, like a champ!
Limitless possibilities
In addition to reading books, my son can now play all kinds of board games, write his own birthday cards, decipher restaurant menus, make a sign for his bedroom door that says “Leave me alone,” understand movie captions like “Five years later,” and much more.
It blows my mind!
When humans first set foot on the moon, it was “one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.”
Learning to read may be one small step in my son’s development, but it’s also one giant leap in his dad’s eyes!