The joy of reading!

I love to read! Anyone that knows me, knows that I almost always have a book somewhere on me, whether it be a borrowed book from the library or on my new Kindle (thanks to my mom for a great birthday present last year!) I am usually reading multiple books at a time and it is truly one of my favorite past times. So, you can only guess my delight, when from an early age, my daughter seemed to develop my same love of reading. I can remember her being less than a year old, holding a book and "reading" to herself or anyone that would listen. Abigail has continued this over the years and has been so excited as she learned her letters, their sounds and what they looked like. And now that she is in kindergarten, she has really taken off and is learning the phonics and sight words, that she has only looked at for years. She has been making such progress since school started in August.

Abigail & Mitchell both reading when she was about 3

This afternoon, I was fixing Abigail's hair before we went out and she grabbed up one of her books to "read" while I finished the very familiar task of making braids. She had a page opened and was just making up her words and I noticed that some of the words were her sight words that she has been learning. I pointed this out to her and she read a few, then she started at the beginning of the sentence and started sounding out the words that she did not know. Before we knew it, she had read the 5 words sentence all by herself! She was so proud of herself, as was I. So, she quickly and eagerly flipped the page and read another 5 or 6 word sentence on her own. Abigail was so thrilled that she was finally reading, something she has longed to do since she was a chubby toddler!

Abigail cheesing with some new books for Christmas

I cannot begin to describe the amount of pride that welled up inside of me, as I watched my firstborn take just another step toward growing up. She will read many words in her life, but none will sound as sweet to my ears as those first, sounded out ever so technically, words. I know what an amazing world opened up to me in the pages of books and I am so excited that she will share this same love and passion for reading as I do. Our night time routines will start to change over the next few months, as Abigail continues to grow in her new-found reading skills and she will start reading to us instead of the other way around! I know watching our kids grow up can be difficult at times, but it is also an amazing journey that I am so privileged to travel along with them!