Reading Detectives

About a week ago, I got this email from Cole's kindergarten teacher:

Dear Families,

This month we have been learning how to be reading detectives! We want to celebrate all that we have learned, and draw on our new found abilities to detect patterns in stories. Now we know how to use patterns to make meaning in a text, to figure out tricky words, and how to read with a smooth voice. Way to go readers!

We would like to invite you to join us this Friday as we celebrate. Our young detectives will teach you how to look for clues in books with a magnifying glass, and how to make predictions about what a book is about or what will happen next. We want you to make predictions and spot clues right along with us.

Oh my god, the cute. I was totally picturing a class full of tiny Sherlock Holmes', wandering around in twill caps and magnifying glasses.

Turns out Cole CAN read. Well, sort of. Short words. He proudly unpacked his little reading bag when I got there and and we sat in a corner of the room on the floor while read me every single page.

When the class was all sitting together, he couldn't stop himself from turning to me and winking or, exaggeratedly mouthing, 'hi, momma!'

This age is painful, almost, because it feels like the last gasp of this totally unfiltered, enthusiastic love that pours from him. He's got no self-consciousness, no cues that tell him to do anything other than run to hug me, or call my name and wave when he sees me enter a room. It's amazing, and I keep trying to remind myself how lucky I am when he's driving me nuts, talking a million miles a minute or begging for his 30th snack of the day.

Here's the class reading (singing) a MLK poem (Cole's on the bottom left, bouncing):