Learning to Read

My youngest daughter, Rachel, is finishing up first grade.  She does fantastic at sounding words out and does a good job of writing - even if the spelling is all wonky, but she really hasn't wanted to put a lot of effort into reading until lately.

Part of this, I believe, is due to my insistence that if she was going to be playing the Wii games, she has to read what is on the screen rather than bugging the daylights out of us.  So now, for whatever reason, she has finally begun to read most things she comes across.

Periodically, this has unintended comical results.

The best recent example of just a situation was Monday evening.  Myself, my oldest daughter Rebecca, and Rachel were out shopping for Dianne's birthday (it's not too late to wish her a happy birthday here!) and Rachel, who is quite good with numbers and days of the week, had the following brief conversation with us:

Rachel:  What date is Mom's birthday?

Gregg: April 28th.

Rachel:  So tomorrow is her birthday.

Gregg: Yep. That's right!

Rachel: (delivering the zinger quite excitedly) AND THE VERY NEXT DAY, OUR MILK EXPIRES!

Naturally, Rebecca and I did our very best job trying to hold in the laughter that was trying to force its way out...without snorting like pigs...with moderate success.

Gregg: Who told you that?

Rachel: I read the side of the milk carton when I was pouring my cereal the other day and just remembered.

It's funny the things they start picking up with this reading thing, though I am a bit baffled as to how we could have milk actually expiring with the number of gallons we go through in a week!  She even reminded everyone on Wednesday about the expired milk...which was gone.

I'd say she is scoring pretty high in reading comprehension, though!

Comments

[Kathy G]

Reading is a great thing.

When Son #1 was 3 years old we were driving home from some (unremembered) place and he pointed out the McDonald's sign. I figured he had seen enough ads on TV that he recognized the name from there. A little further down the road and he pointed out something else by name. I realized he was READING the names! It scared the bejeezus out of me.

[Mel]

This is so funny!!!!