Braden, You're a Reader!

The title of this post is a little inside joke between David and me. There used to be this Hooked on Phonics commercial with a mom talking about her son learning to read, and she said (in a slightly over-the-top soccer mom kind of voice), "Austin, you're a reader!!" It stuck with us for some reason, and we say that every now and then and laugh. Anyway... I'm SO excited now because Braden is learning to read!! He knows several sight words and is really starting to use the phonics sounds to decode words he doesn't know. We have a few little phonics readers at home that he has read, and I know Ms. Heather, his Pre-K teacher, is working on it at school, too. Parents used to ask me (as a teacher) to explain to them how kids learn to read, and I always wanted to say, "It's magic." It is still somewhat of a mystery to me, so don't ask me how it happens! :)

Braden is really excited about learning to read, among other things. Last night, he came to me while I was feeding Cameron his bottle before bed, and said, "Mom, you will never believe what I just did!" Then he whispered in my ear, "I brushed my teeth without the stool!" He demonstrated how he had to jump up and lean over the counter to spit in the sink, and I said wow and something about him getting bigger and that was great. Then, he had this amazed look on his face, and said, with lots of enthusiasm, "I'm learning to read, and I can brush my teeth without the stool! This is AWESOME!"

Here he is doing his first ever homework assignment - writing sight words.