Watching a child learn to read when they make those first connections and things start to click is beyond exciting.

I remember a scene with Hanna playing out much like today’s with Ellie where I would present Hanna with a word, any word that started with H. Let’s say the word was “hat.” She would stare at it, over think it, scrunch up her nose before shaking the letters around in her mind and shouting, “hamburger?” She knew it started with the right sound but the piecing it together part had not yet been perfected.

I giggled across from Ellie today who stumbled over the word “peanut.”

She quickly abandoned the key steps to sounding out a word as she was anxious to get through a sentence. She read the few words that lead up to peanut and then pointed at it with no effort made to sound it out. The pointing was her way of saying, “tell me what this word is” so I can move onto something less likely to kill someone in my class if I bring it in my lunch but I wasn’t going to let her off the hook.

I told her to look at the picture—a giant peanut in a shell and sound out each letter.  Aside to illustrators—kids don’t often see peanuts in the shell the way they used to on the floor at the saloon. Perhaps a peanut without the shell might be less confusing?

Again, with haste, she opted to shout things (not unlike her older sister hamburger) instead of trying to carefully shape the word.

Ellie: put peas in the pot?

Me: Try again

Ellie: putting peas pot?

Me: You’re getting some of the sounds but this time start at the beginning and sound out each letter–slowly

Ellie: Putting nut?

Me: You’re getting close

Ellie: Pudding nut?

There were several variations with nut at the end and even a few with pea at the beginning but nary the two shall meet.

At some point a parent assumes the kid is simply messing with them and has no choice but to tickle the child until they clearly enunciate the word peanut before being permitted to move on.

And that’s exactly what we did.