Reading, (w)Riting and (a)Rithmithic

I am actually not keen for Sophie to start reading that soon. My mom likes to tell me that I could read by 18 months old, and so Sophie's already "behind" me in that way. There are good and bad things about reading very early. For my parents, it meant that I was essentially self-entertaining most days. I could be left in a corner with a book from very young and just fed and watered at regular intervals. On the down-side it actually made me exceedingly bored at school.

What I cannot stop is that the ayi is teaching Sophie how to read. Generally, she puts a word in front of Sophie on a magna doodle board and then saying it aloud to her (see photo above). I guess that since Sophie doesn't watch TV they have to find some way of entertaining themselves (and her!) and teaching her to count and read seems to have kept them all pretty occupied thus far.

This photo was taken near the end of last summer, and Sophie could read about 15 words. What I recall was happening in the photo was that she was pushing herself around the house on her ride-on toy and then she would be stopped at the "junction" and asked to read a word before being allowed continued access. I am lucky that we have great ayis looking after Sophie to interact with her in a really creative way.

Since then, I've stopped counting what she can read, but I think it's pretty cool that she can read the advertising on the back of a bus. I don't worry that she'll be bored in school. She's going to an English-speaking one because I don't want her to be monolingual! So she'll learn to read together with all the other children.