Every now and then, Bernard’s linguistic abilities explode, and new avenues of communication are opened up to him. It’s always cute to hear him muttering to himself, practising new sounds or words that he has just learned. This morning we all woke up around 7:30, which for us is a good lie-in. We could hear the boy down on his mattress beside our bed mumbling stock cars. stOCK CArs. STock carZZ. So that’s what he wants to do this weekend, we thought.
At school he does phonics, which means learning letter sounds and letter combinations, along with funny little actions like blowing out a candle for p. He has a few phonics books that we inherited, and they make excruciatingly boring reads. When he picks them at bedtime my entire being yawns. It’s a bit better now that he reads them to me, rather than demanding that I read them to him. I can switch off and plan my next knitting project. Yes, you heard it hear first: sometimes mothers are not remotely interested in what their adorable offspring are up to.
In the Oxfam bookshop, I found an old Peter and Jane Ladybird book, you may remember the sort of thing if you’re as old as me. It contains such thrilling plotlines as Here is Peter. Here is Jane. Here is the dog. Peter likes Jane. Jane likes Peter. Peter and Jane like the dog. etc. But it’s still better than the phonics books [oil. boil. coil. soil.]
I brought it home and read it to him once, and then he had a go. He started by reading in a staccato monotone, halting completely when he reached a new word. I encouraged him to sound out the word using those boring old phonics, and he has gradually realised that even if he hasn’t tried to read the word before, he can often work it out. I can see now that he is recognising whole words, although he often guesses the ending from recognising the beginning, and gets it wrong until I prompt him to say all the sounds. Then he gets it right. Of course by now he has read the book so many times that he knows it off by heart, and reads it to himself with intonations and real fluency.
Starting to read has also affected the way he says some words, because he is more aware of word endings. Until now, he has often swallowed the endings of words, or simply got them wrong [using hers instead of her]. Now he has begun to enunciate more clearly, which is a big help in comprehending him.
And because the Ladybird readers are so much less dull than the phonics books, I am quite happy to sit and listen to him read. But we may have to move him on to Nabokov soon, just to keep me interested.