90 degrees in a new direction for Ella

In other words, Ella has turned the corner on reading.

I haven't said it before, but I'm saying it now. Yep. It was yesterday, October 30, 2007. She's reading. She has been able to read in some form for almost 2 years, but yesterday it seemed to click for her. She was six-and-a-half on Monday. The magic moment I've been doubting would come, as progress has been steadily incremental, oh, at 5 degrees or so.

Ella's potty-training progress when she was a toddler was quite similar to her reading, minus the 2-year effort. She had no real impetus to potty-train when she was two -- she cheerfully figured why bother, she was happy, she had it easy, it was nicer for someone else to worry about the diaper than to make the effort herself. It wasn't so much a matter of laziness as a comfort in the status quo. And then, 4 days after she turned 3, she suddenly decided that it was time, and that was it. No real effort involved, she just did it. And that seemed to be the case with reading, as well. She worked at it because I made her, for school, but she was just as happy to have someone read to her when it was an effort. And suddenly, it's no longer such an effort, so she's proud and happy to do it.

Madison was totally different. Her philosophy about reading was very like her own potty-training, too. She was not quite 2 1/2, and she wanted to do it all by herself, damn it, because the potty was there to be conquered. The same thing with reading...she was almost 6, and I'd already read the first 19 Boxcar Children books to her, and I'd told her that we weren't getting started on the next 90 books, she'd have to read them herself. And by god, she was going to do just that. And so she did...she sat down in August 2005 and just started reading, skipping any words she didn't know.

But back to Ella. She insists on reading me a whole Dr. Seuss-ish book in the morning before getting out of bed, and another before going to sleep. Yesterday it was Go, Dog. Go! and Marvin K Mooney, Will You Please Go Now? and today it was The Best Nest and Hop On Pop.

I attribute the suddenly steep slope to two things: To the Writing Road To Reading cards and method Laura introduced me to a few weeks ago, and to the fact that Ella has been singing and playing the piano so much, reading the words -- words that are conveniently broken up into syllables -- along with the music.

Or, heck, maybe it was just Her Time and it would have happened without all the work. No real way to tell. At least she has the sense that hard work pays off, which is almost as valuable as her newly-acquired skill.