Reading and the single mom

Like most kindergartners across the country right now, my son is learning to read.


And he's loving it. He loves the painstaking process of sounding out words: c-a-t. kkkk-aaaa-ttttt. Cat! He's so proud of himself with it all, as well he should be.


He tries to read signs as we drive down the road. He tries to read labels on food in the house. He tried just the other day to read the "Do not remove" tag from my hair dryer.


But realistically what he can read is limited to simple, single-syllable words. At this point, they're teaching only the short sounds of all the vowels (think "o" in "hop," not "hope." And don't even think about crazy things like "hoop."). The silent "e" has not made an appearance, and letter combinations like "sh," "th" and "nt" are just beginning to crop up. Vowel combinations like "ou," "io" or "ei" are light years off.

Just last night he read every word of a little phonics primer book from school. Granted, the sentences go something like "Del got Jon wet. Jon is mad. Jon runs to get Del. Del falls in a big tub. Del is wet." Still, it's quite an accomplishment to sound it all out himself.

And sound it all out he did. It was a painstaking process for nearly every word. "Ddd-eee-llll. Del. Ggg-ooo-ttt. Got. Jjj-ooo-nnn. Jon. Www-eee-ttt. Wet. Del got Jon wet." You get the picture. We were there for a while.

But I was so impressed. When he started school a few short months ago, he couldn't read a word, barely knew all his letters and maybe a handful of letter sounds, and now he's sounding things out and learning a few words by sight (the, and, was, etc.). He's eager and excited about reading, and I'm just bursting with pride.

So imagine my feeling of defeat yesterday when, on a field trip to the art museum, I learned that my son isn't quite the star reader I think he is. During the tour, the docent asked the students if they could read the words on the wall of one exhibit.

I was sitting in the back of the group, veritably rolling my eyes at this joker. "These are kindergartners, man. No, they can't read that," I was thinking.

And no sooner did that thought cross my mind than one little hand shot up from the assembled group on the floor and the eager little boy piped up with, "Charlie Parker played be bop."

My jaw practically hit my knees. Yep, that's exactly what was written on the wall. "Charlie Parker played be bop." And this kid didn't stumble or pause his way through the words, the way my son does through even simple constructions like "chin" or "ball."

Just "Charlie Parker played be bop," just as fast as you're hearing it in your head right now while reading. I was flabbergasted. How, when, where did he learn to do that? What have I been failing to teach my son? How can a 5-year-old pull off words like "Charlie" and "played"? Do you have any idea how many phonetic principles (and the exceptions thereto) it takes to understand words like that? Silent "e." Consonant combinations. Consonant and vowel combos. An "i" that's neither long nor short . The whole conundrum of the letter "y". How in the freaking world?

A few moments later another child proudly read "Sourpuss and Sweetie Pie" from another part of the exhibit. They're killing me here, absolutely killing me.

I've read before that children generally aren't ready to read before age 6 and that forcing it before then does them no favors developmentally. I'm trying to chant that to myself while fighting the sinking feeling that my son is the class dolt. I'm still so proud of him for reading like he is, of course, and I think he's smart as a whip. But perhaps I should start breaking out "War and Peace" a little earlier than I had planned.