Learning to Fly

After reading Kira's phonics entry yesterday, I couldn't help remembering my first experience in learning to read.

I was so excited to learn how to read. My mother would read to us sometimes, but never enough to satisfy my hunger for stories. I knew that when I started school I would learn how to read for myself, and then I wouldn't have to wait anymore for Mom. I could read the books to myself! That was such an exciting thought. I was going to read anything I wanted to! (And I did too. Once I learned how to read my parents spent the next twelve years trying to convince me to do something else once in a while. I got so many lectures about the virtue of a well-rounded personality!)

Anyway, getting back to the subject ...

Soon after starting first grade, our teacher (who seemed tremendously old, but who I already loved with all of my 6 year old heart) called us over into a corner of the room where there was a blackboard. We sat down on the carpeted floor, our legs crossed, and listened while she talked about reading.

She wrote the word SING on the blackboard and sounded it out for us. "Sssss, ing," she said. We repeated it.

Then she wrote ING after the first word, so that it read SINGING. She underlined the second ING. "These are the same letters and they make the same sounds," she told us. "Sing, ing. Singing."

And it made sense! Things started falling into place and I was suddenly so excited I could hardly sit still. I could read! I could read a word!

Then our teacher started talking about spelling, using letters to make words. "Do you any of you know how to spell a word?" she asked.

I did! I knew a word I could spell! I threw my hand into the air, waving it frantically. I wasn't supposed to jump up to get her attention and I wasn't supposed to say anything until she called my name, but I came as close to standing up as I could and waved my arm so hard it's amazing I didn't fall over.

"Yes, Jennifer. What word can you spell?"

I pulled my hand back down and sat up very straight, feeling enormously proud of myself.

"N. O. spells 'No!'"

I was confusedwhen my teacher started laughing. What had I done?

"Do you hear that a lot, Jennifer?" she asked, still grinning.

I sighed and nodded my head. "Yes," I told her, feeling a little uncomfortable admitting that to my much-adored teacher.

She brought herself under control again. "Well, that's very good, Jennifer. That's exactly how you spell no. Does anyone else know how to spell a word?"

I don't remember much after that, but that exchange is still very clear in my mind. I told my mother about it years later, when I was old enough to understand the joke. She laughed, but in a sheepish way. After all, she was the one I learned that phrase from!