More on Aseem's Reading

My friend Betsy told me what her grandmother said to her about learning to read. Her grandmother was a reading specialist in the Ohio system, with a whole lot of experience teaching kids to read. She said, "Reading is 99% readiness and 1% exposure." If you push before a kid is ready to read, you and the kid are going to be frustrated. On the other hand, cnce they are ready, the 1% exposure is all it takes for them to start reading.

We are seeing the truth of this in action with Aseem. He recently started reading and now the process is accelerating as he assimilates his newly-learned skill. I am trying to do what I can to make him aware of patterns in words. So today I wrote: RED, BED, TED. He read them without a hitch. I followed up with:

AND, BAND, LAND
ZOO, ZOOM, ZOOT
LOO, LOOM, LOOT
TEN, TED, BED, BET

He read them all without a problem.

I have a chart of sight words (100 basic words that everybody needs to know to read at a basic level), and yesterday he took a shot at reading them. He knows many and he was able to sound out many more. It's so much fun to watch him learn these new skills with evident excitement and pride of ownership. I feel like I have the front seat for the greatest show on Earth!