Reading is fundamental

Reading is especially fundamental if you're a 3-year-old boy who wants something.

We have a nightly ritual at our house. If the boy is good, he gets a short video of his liking.

Tonight, my Darling Son couldn't decide what he wanted to watch. So he started glancing at our collection of tapes.

He started with the black tapes, which were out of the box (because when you have a busy household, little details such as putting VCR tapes back in their appropriate box just slide.)

The second tape he found had a very simple black and white label. No pictures. No color. Just white print against a black background. Very little to hint at what it could be. But I was about to put it away, since it's a movie that's a little raunchy compared to Winnie the Pooh.

But he pointed to the largest word in print and deciphered it.

"Mommy, this is Shrek."

He was right, but I asked him if he was sure, but he pointed to the word again.
And he read it again.

Now, he knows most of the letters phonetically (since that's what his Montessori school emphasizes), but we hadn't really advanced to putting letters together to make words. So I'm not aware that he can read words.

Maybe he recognized it because the S in the world has little horns like Shrek does?

I don't know. However he did it, I was too shocked to refuse his request.

And so he got to see the ogre and I got my first glimpse into my son's latest mental milestone.