Hooked on Phonics

Over the past few weeks Jack and Luke have really gotten interested in the alphabet--writing the letters, sounding them out, asking me to spell every spoken word etc.. and they are huge on rhyming. They make up words and are just plain silly in determining what words rhyme with others. Last week I overheard Jack say to Luke "sound it out Luke, m-m-m- Mommy, it starts with an L". I love to read and hope to pass this along to the boys. It has always been my personal goal to be the one that teaches them to read so I am thrilled that this Phonics interest as developed "on it's own" and I am hoping to be able to get them on their way to reading this year. I can remember my Dad teaching me to read and really encouraging me to read aloud and spell/sound out words. Luckily Jack and Luke have always loved to read and will pick reading over lots of other activities. Well as you can imagine with all the rhyming they are discovering some words along the way that I cannot help but crack up when I hear. One day in the car we were talking about how lucky we were to see so many mail trucks on the way home from our pool. Jack slapped his knee like I just told a good joke and said "yeah mommy, lucky-fucky-ducky-lucky". I had to pull over I was laughing so hard. It's just not right to hear the f-word come out of a 4 year olds mouth. He had no idea why I was laughing, he just thought I liked his rhyme. With that charming smile, how can you resist? Funny, bunny sunny....