The Reading Lesson

I am sorry to admit that, for a variety of reasons too boring to outline, I got out of the habit of reading with David over the Christmas break.

This week saw our full fledged return to the regular routine, which frankly I have been anticipating as much as David. On Wednesday, Andrew had choir practice at church. David knows the drill. We ride the elevator one time, and then he has to read me a book. Ride and then read. Ride and then read. Apply, lather, rinse repeat for the entire half hour choir practice. It is truly amazing how many level A readers you can rip through in that amount of time.

David was excited about riding the elevators. But the reading? Not so much.

We sat down with the first book, a gripping autobiographical account entitled I Can See. For some reason, the font used for the book had the capital "I" with just the straight line up and down, no cross lines at the top and bottom, looking suspiciously like a lower case "L." I asked David to read the title. "L can see," he said.

I corrected him and turned the page. "L can see three…" he said and then there was a long pause. "L can see three," he continued "BUH-NUB."

"I can see three bowls," I offered and turned the page.

"L can see three BUH-NUB," David continued, smiling.

On each page, he read the "I" as an "L" and each time he encountered a word he did not know, he read it as "buh-nub." He was not interested in sounding out the words. He was not willing to make any attempt, but rather more interested in the speed with which he could get back to pressing the elevator button.

Buh-nub. Now, that is a new one. I have not previously encountered that word in David's vocabulary, but I do believe the David dictionary might define it as a cross between "bah humbug" and "go pound sand."