We’ve made it to the point where I’m happy to say that Ms R can read. I’m not exactly sure when it happened but the general words that are scattered around our life in the form of labels, signs and headlines are now easily understood. This morning at the sandwich chiller she helped Master R choose his lunch by reading out all the fillings for him. She wasn’t consciously trying to decipher the letters on the front, she just knew by looking that it wasn’t just a salad sandwich but that it had chicken in it too. That another one had bacon and another had tuna. There was no place for me to praise her on being able to read all the fillings out loud, I didn’t even bother acknowledging it because I doubt she realised that she was reading. She was just helping her brother which happens almost subconsciously for her; she’ll often pass him something without being asked when she sees him stretching, lift him up if he’s not tall enough to see or explain something he doesn’t quite get. She proved her skills again when we got home by reading on the front of some mail: ‘To the parent or guardian of…’. I doubt she could have read the word ‘guardian’ from a flashcard but she knew what the g word in the context of that sentence would say. After she read it out loud without faltering she took another moment to look at it, sounding the word out under her breath as if dismantling and then rebuilding it so that she’d know how it was made and why it said what it did. I often catch her looking at a word and muttering under her breath, I guess she’s got enough of the required tools to not need any interference.
We have new neighbours, next door upstairs. This afternoon when the Rs were playing in the garden they became aware that they were being watched, after a while they started waving up at the window and before long were giving their names and ages. They have made friends with Rob who we are guessing is between ten and twelve, apparently there were two more little faces up there as well although they didn’t speak.
The grass is up in our eco-system. It seems to be growing before our very eyes being twice as tall this evening as it was this morning.
It has been hot today, lots of people have been complaining about it. I’m hoping it lasts for at least three months. 