Anna is reading. She’s 3 1/2. And I am one proud mama.

No, I’m not one of those moms who pushes her kids to overachieve and reach milestones faster than their peers. At least, I don’t think I am. Anna just has a natural knack for it. And I’ve guided her along the way, but really I’ve done very little.

We first figured out she might be an early reader when she was not quite 2 years old. We had given her a toy laptop for Christmas, designed for older kids, but we thought she would have fun pushing the buttons and watching the screen and hearing the sounds… typical baby stuff. Then one day I was watching her play the game where it was “raining letters” and she had to hit the button for that letter before it disappeared from the screen. And she was getting every one right. Upper and lower case. Very impressive, but I thought surely she had just memorized where the buttons were on the computer. So I asked her to point out specific letters for me in her books. And on t-shirts, and cereal boxes, and anything else in the house that had writing on it. And she knew them, almost every one. Upper and lower case.

She had completely taught herself her letters, before she was even two years old, while her dumb mama was totally oblivious.

After that, I started paying attention and encouraging her in her alphabet adventures. Before long she had learned most of the sounds that go with the letters. By the time she was three, she could isolate the beginning sound of a word and tell us what letter it started with.

At several points along the way, I thought I needed to look into some type of structured curriculum. I would think, “Now that she can do such-and-such, what skill is she supposed to learn next? I have no clue! I need lesson plans! A schedule! Fun worksheets and activities! Do I need to look at preschool resources? Should I be using colored macaroni and empty toilet paper tubes somehow?”

But then I would remember that Anna always learned what she was ready for. I didn’t have to worry about what was next. When she was ready to get a little closer to reading, she would just surprise me one day, like when she said, “Puh, puh, puh… Mommy, potato starts with p!” And that’s how I knew she was ready to work on beginning sounds.

A few months after that, she started to blend sounds (“Mommy, play dough starts with pl!”). A couple of months ago, I started getting her to try sounding out words in books. Not books that teach reading, just regular children’s books that parents read to their kids. Every book has words like an and on and up and so forth. We didn’t need special books. And she could do it! And oh, the giddy, excited outburst when she did it was priceless. She’s pretty quick at two-letter and three-letter words now, and she can do a lot of four-letter and has even done five-letter words on occasion. (David was wearing a Red Cross t-shirt once and she read the word Cross.)

Last week I taught her the long oo sound, wrote out some words on a dry-erase board like food, moon, etc., and had her read them. Yesterday while Sarah was taking a nap, I jotted down some ee words on a scrap piece of paper, taught her what sound ee makes, and had her read them plus a simple sentence at the bottom. It took all of two or three minutes, and then we snuggled on the couch and read library books.

And that’s it. We don’t need a homeschool curriculum, special books designed to teach reading, DVD programs, worksheets, or colored macaroni. :) We don’t even need any kind of plan or schedule. It just happens.

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