1861 McKail Rd
Leonard MI, 48367
Circa 1994-95
Mom sits down on our ratty yellow couch. It is four in the afternoon, Dad is at work, and my little sister can be heard snoring upstairs. I sit down beside Mom.
She takes out a book. This book is much bigger and heavier than any other book I’ve read before (previous titles browsed included such classics as "Green Eggs and Ham" and "Mickey's Safari Adventure". It has some letters on the front. I pick out an A and an O.
Mom opens it up and shows me the first page. All gibberish. The letters swim in front of me and I look up at her. Her eyes smile at me as she patiently nods toward the book. “Cat.” she says.
I look down where she’s pointing. “Cat.” Her hand slides down to another word. “Bat”, she says.
I think I understand. Both words have “at” on the end, and a letter corresponding to the sound she says at the beginning. The next word has an S in place of the C or the B.
“Sat!” I say triumphantly. I am congratulated, for apparently that’s the gist of it.
We progress through the big book over the course of the next few weeks, through the “ribs” and the “bibs”, the “farms” and “alarms”, although I admit that last one was a bit of a puzzler for me the first time. I’m learning each letter has a sound, and a certain group of letters has a certain group of sounds.
Gradually I get it, and then pretty much everything becomes a target.
Shel Silverstien, Dr. Seuss.
Sunken ship ghost stories, books on mummies, and Bob Dylan song lyrics.
World War I flying aces, King Arthur and his knights, Sherlock Holmes and Watson, Christian on the Pilgrim's road and Odysseus on his quest.
Whitman, Bradbury, Poe, Chekhov, Tolkien.
Leaves of Grass, Dandelion Wine, Masques of Red Death, Russian Peasants, and Hobbits.
The big, heavy book has mellowed out a bit in the course I’ve known it. It hides secrets no longer; now the words Alpha Phonics are plainly visible on the cover.
Now it’s two years later. I’m sitting in the living room reading Homer Price. Mom sits my little sister down on our ratty yellow couch…
“Cat.” I hear her say..
-Josh Grablowski
I don't have too many specific memories of first learning to read, although there are some home videos, one involving me reading a little learn-to-read pamphlet type book while my father and sister do their thing, scooping guts out of a pumpkin. I was far too ladylike to be scooping guts out of pumpkins...reading was more my thing.
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