Laurel just read a book.
She didn’t just read the words of an old familiar book in our collection, which she’s been doing for months. From memory. She read a new book she’d never seen before.
I picked out some books at the library, among them Todd Parr’s Reading Makes You Feel Good. I turned to page one, and I told Laurel to read the words. And she did. “Reading makes you feel good because you can imagine you are a brave princess or a scary dinosaur.” She got stuck on “because” “imagine” and “scary.” She read about 90% of the words in this book. Easily.
I shouldn’t be surprised. She’s been caught reading books in bed late at night lately, her face screwed up in such throes of concentration, as though she were some mad evil scientist trying to crack the code that sends all the missles airborn. Or something.