Go, Dog, Go! Go, Eli, Go!

There's a book I read when I was a kid, maybe around Eli's age, I remember where I was when I read it to my dad. Red Fish, Blue Fish. I remember feeling so proud that it was the first book I'd ever read all the way through all by myself. I realize now that I may have heard that book read to me a hundred times before I read it to him, and perhaps I couldn't even read but I was just following the pictures on the page to know what to say. But that proud feeling has stayed with me. Now I get to share that feeling with my son.

Last night Eli kept asking when I would read him a book, and could we please read Go Dog Go? When we finally sat down and I started reading, I was happily surprised to have him take over. It took us a very long time, but we made our way through the entire book with Eli reading more than I expected him to. We had a combination of guessing, getting clues from the pictures and slowly sounding things out, but we did it, HE did it! He read it!

We read it again tonight and I was reminded of what it feels like to watch the world begin to open up to a child as they begin to decode those letters on the page. The secret code, the key to all that knowledge, and the door is starting to open up to him. Watch out world, here he comes!