Penguin Ships

Cody's now a pretty great reader. It's still not his first choice of Things To Do—he's very much a boy, and would much rather do Legos or something involving dirt or engineering—but he's come a long way in the past 6 months or so. We told him once he got to be proficient enough to be reading to himself in bed, he'd get his own reading light, and could stay up after lights out to read for awhile. He wasn't too impressed by this promise, but once that moment came, he loved choosing his light and likes staying up past his sister, doing something she can't do.

She likes this less.

Immediately, she asked for a reading light, too. A pink one. Because they share so much—including a room—we really wanted this to be something that was just for Cody, the fruits of his own labor and the reward for a great accomplishment. We didn't want to diminish it for him by giving one to her just because she felt left out. So we told her the same thing: When you become a reader, you can choose a light and stay up later.

Let me flash back for a second. At my first parent-teacher conference, in October, Cordelia's teacher and I laughed about how she discovered the flaw in the Montessori system within the first couple of days: you can choose what you want to work on. She was a little nervous, as you'll recall, and so she declared that she had made her choice: "I will do nothing. I will just sit here." "Okay!" her teacher cheerfully replied. And then proceeded, wisely, to just wait her out. Now, Cora can't be stopped.

I'm not kidding: this is what she likes to do when it's just us.


A few days after the reading light conversation, her teacher said, "Cordelia is just so focused these days on doing her sound boxes!" Trying to remember what they were, she explained that they're the Montessori pre-reading "job." The children go through all the sounds, instead of learning letters; so, they manipulate "A" and say the short A sound, and match it to pictures (I think, anyway). Cody never really talked about this, because he was, you know, building ships. She said these can often take kids a while to go through, because it's a very solitary job—requires total independent work, which most three-year-olds aren't that into. They'd rather be social and do jobs with other friends.

I laughed. She's Jonathan's daughter, too, after all.

At my next conference, about a month ago, she said, "Well, Cordelia is blowing through her sound boxes. I strongly suspect she'll be reading three-letter words soon. Definitely before she's four. She's been unbelievably focused." I explained about the desired pink reading light, and the competition with Cody, and she laughed and laughed. A few days later, when I picked her up, she was beaming and holding this:

I was just tickled. So she read all those words in her first "language box" (there are dozens, color coded; Cody is probably about 3/4 of the way through the third level—mostly because he finds other things to do…every day). Then her teacher wrote them with a highlighter and she traced them.

I was kind of amazed, and her teacher said, "Well, don't worry if you see a little plateau. This takes a lot of focus. She's unusually focused, but many times the children get to this point and then want to go do various other jobs for awhile. She'll come back to it."

Well, she did. The next day.  And Every. Day. Since.

She's about halfway through the first level now (the pink language boxes, of course). She's on the "E" sounds now (net, pen, ten, red, etc.) but she's like a little redheaded buzz saw. I've never seen anything like it. She is so far ahead of where he was at this age with reading.  He likes to read—but only if he's in the mood for it. Meanwhile, he's now trying to add, subtract, and divide in his head. I still can't do that, actually. And he's building—completely on his own—this Lego container ship that's for kids 12 and up. With zero help. Cordelia sits next to him companionably, pulling limbs on and off the mini-figs, and outfitting them with new hats. And humming. Always, always humming.

It's just amazing how DIFFERENT they come out. And how their strengths are what they are. If anything, we read to Cody MORE, since he had all of our attention the first two years. It's really exciting to see so much development.

Mostly because in my head, all these years, is the hope that someday I can pile them in the car with a bag of books, turn on the ignition, and not hear from them for 4 or 5 hours. A girl can dream!

But I've buried the lede. We've now got quite a collection of little stapled-together booklets. When I picked her up this morning, she said, "MOM! Guess what I got! I got a PENGUIN SHIP BOOK!"

"A what?" I asked, puzzled. I was thinking of one of Cody's favorite picture books, Lost & Found, which does in fact involve a penguin on a ship of sorts.

"A PENGUIN SHIP BOOK!" she shouted. (She shouts a lot.) "Because I am doing so much reading and writing I don't have to do booklets anymore! I am like one of the big kids!"

Then I realized what she meant: a penmanship book. Cody got his somewhere around this time last year—the second half of his second year of preschool. Which apparently is about the usual time. She began hers today. The pink lamp can't be too far behind.

Will she ever be able to add? Who can say. But I am just thrilled for her. And for me...and my dream.