I was putting my lunch away in my bag when I could hear Charlotte talking in her room. No hang on a sec, not talking but reading - or rather sounding out and trying to read one of her books on her own, completely unprompted.
Regular readers of this blog will probably know what a big emo softie I am but as I stood there listening to her sounding out, putting into practice all the recent phonics, word exercises and things she'd been learning at her school (who have managed to do so much in the space of 6 weeks, hats off to them!) it was a beautiful moment and one I felt I'd love to halt time for a while for, just so I could stand there a little longer and enjoy that sound. One of the best sounds in the world.
Charlotte has been using the fantastic Oxford Reading Tree books from Oxford University Press at her school and they work beautifully, with great contributors such as Julia Donaldson and one of our recent fave author illustrators, Ross Collins as well as many many others.
The books work, and I'd also hope that we're helping too - we read to her every night (have done since she was a tiny tiny baby), you all already know how much she loves books and it was just such a beautiful moment to hear her doing that this morning, knowing that she SO wants to read and will even do it completely unprompted.
I'd put out a plea to all parents (particularly dads, because it seems dads are missing out on reading to their kids which to me just seems completely insane) to read to their kids, don't do it because you feel you have to - do it because you want to and because through your enthusiasm and encouragement as well as your school or library's excellent books, children will really reap the rewards and start to enjoy something that truly will have a massive impact on their lives in more ways than you can imagine.