Click to Play

Mac users click here (Still need to figure out how to get video embedded properly and working for both platforms)

This morning Quinn read his first word. For real. (Well, okay, actually he read the word “DOG” first but I didn’t get my camera out in time. So for posterity we’ll just say “CAT” was the first.) I can’t tell you how amazing it was to witness this AND share in his excitement and pride. He was absolutely thrilled. As a parent, there’s pretty much nothing better than sharing a moment like that with your kid.

Quinn has been obsessed with letters the last couple of weeks. Letter recognition. Sounds of letters. Writing letters. What letters different words start with. I bought him a couple Phonics dvds from Leapfrog for our roadtrip which he watched over and over. Even his drawing style has changed since his interest in letters. He went from round scribbles to geometric shapes, lines, connecting points. So fascinating.

And then today he did it. He recognized the letters, sounded them out and READ A WORD. Now he’s a reading machine — “dog” “hat” “pop” “rat”.

And then, and I’m not kidding, later today he did addition. We were on a walk in Chrissy Field and Thor, on a whim, started asking Quinn “What’s 4 + 2?”, “What’s 5 + 5?”, etc and Quinn was answering at lightening speed.

Perhaps he got into some radioactive sludge while I was away?