I can read!

A couple of months ago as we were driving Sam would start to point out words to me like car or toy etc. We decided to encourage this interest by writing simple sentences and to our amazement he had very little problems with them. We do not want to force him to read but since the interest is there we simply want to encourage it. He often points out words to us, frequently it's the names of animals. At the library the other day Sam, Claire and I were looking at animal books. Sam said "I want the white-tailed deer book" and he held up the book. I looked at the cover and it showed a deer but didn't show the tail so I was baffled as to how he knew that was a white-tailed deer. I asked him how he knew that was a white-tailed deer and asked if he read the title. When he said he read it I was blown away. So yesterday when I got the kids up from quiet time and he came into Claire's room reading sentences from the book Go Dogs Go I really shouldn't have been surprised, but I was. He's 4! I can't believe he can read sentences! Of course, I am quite certain that he is not the only 4 year who can do this nor do I think this means he's a genius or anything like that (although I do think he is smart but I'm biased!) but I am so excited that he is interested in reading at such a young age. My hope is that this enthusiasm for books continues to grow and that he doesn't burn out once he gets to school. For now, we will continue to encourage him and I'm sure we will continue to be amazed with what he is learning.