the reader

there's big news in the mann family these days:

susanna is reading.

i hate to compare our children, so i'm not going to go into how young liam was when he began to read, but it is interesting to compare their two different learning styles.  with liam, his reading seemed to be an all-of-a-sudden thing.  i even remember exactly where we were when we realized he could actually read -- we were in our rental apartment when we first moved back to raleigh and were waiting on our house in asheville to sell.  he was sitting on the floor in his temporary room, opened up one of those "i can read!" short little books that we'd just gotten at the library, and pretty much went to town.  i remember screaming to chris, and him running from the other side of that tiny apartment, convinced that someone must have broken a limb.  but we stood there, in awe, marveling at how our son had somehow overnight mastered this skill.

susanna, on the other hand, has been much more gradual.  over a year ago she started recognizing smaller words, but stubbornly refused to go any further.  "i know you know this word!" i'd encourage her as we read one of her many princess stories.  but she'd refuse to play the game.  "i don't want to read.  i want YOU to read.  so read," she'd demand.  and not wanting to turn our reading time into something negative, chris and i would oblige, inwardly wondering how old she'd be before she finally decided that this was something she wanted to do.

so she began kindergarten as a master of her ABCs and not much else.  and this is where i have to admit something that i'm embarrassed to say: i sort of doubted that her kindergarten teacher could accomplish much with our bullheaded daughter.  i mean, if we, working closely one-on-one with her, couldn't get anywhere, how in the world was a teacher with 22 students of varying abilities going to achieve any more than we did?

(what's embarrassing about this is that, of course, i am a teacher.  and i'd be offended if any parent ever voiced that concern to me.  i can't imagine someone saying, "i just don't know how you're going to teach my kid how to solve a quadratic equation, since there are 29 other kids sitting around him."  um, well, that's what teachers do.  so why i questioned what she'd learn in kindergarten is beyond me.)

anyway, something must have clicked, or her teacher waved her magic wand, or ... well, her teacher used her talents and did what she's been trained to do.  because after four months of elementary school, susanna is a reader.  her face beams with pride as she works her way through her books -- haltingly, to be sure, but tenacious.  one night last week she'd begun reading a dr. seuss book to me before i had to leave her to attend an online webinar.  i suggested that she continue reading to her stuffed animals, a captive audience lined up on her bed.  i returned a half-hour later to find her on page 51, sometimes pausing on the longer words but trudging through just fine.  she looked up at me, beaming, so proud that she was almost at the end.  it seems her stubborn streak has resurfaced as a determined streak.  it's funny how what was once a frustrating personality trait has become something quite awesome.

susanna smiles a lot these days.  she smiles when she receives a birthday party invitation, and when she finds out we're going to see beauty and the beast in 3D, and when she's allowed to choose a dessert at the grocery.  but there's no question which smile i love the most: it's the one that lights up her face as she proudly reads.  it's a smile of joy.  a smile of accomplishment.

it's the smile of a reader.