Reilly is so excited with himself because he has really taken off with this whole reading thing. He reads books to us at night before going to bed, he reads things on the fridge, on cars, in the store, on packaging. He takes his time and really sounds it out. 

Recently at a parent/teacher conference we had the teachers encouraged us to really give his progress more and more of our efforts over the summer to keep the momentum going. As they said he “is really taking off”. We asked a lot of questions about how they taught Reilly to read and about sounding it out and putting sounds together and so on. I was glad we had the conversation, especially the part about him recognizing parts of words and putting the sounds together because it really shed light on the story I’m going to share:

Reilly and I were driving to school the other day. He is in the back of the van and I’m, obviously, driving. I hear “Oh Shhhhh….” and I don’t hear the end of the word. He is bent over so I know I may have missed it and that it’s probably a good thing. But, being the forthcoming one that he is he said to me

“Mom, did you think I just swore?”

“Hunh? no… I wouldn’t think you just swore”

“Well… I did. I said shit”

“Oh, I didn’t hear you.”

“Well, I dropped my stuff and I was trying to say oot but I said it so it came out shit instead of shoot.”