Jeff Is Reading

Back around Thanksgiving we were all driving back to Boston after visiting my family for the holiday.  We stopped for dinner at a Chipotle and in the middle of eating Jeff randomly yells the word "out!"  Derek and I had no idea why he blurted out that word.  When we asked him what he meant he pointed to sign hanging in the restaurant that included the word "out."

"Did you read that???" I asked.

"Yep!" he said proudly.

A few weeks later we were driving to a strip mall and I hear from the back seat, "Old!  I see old!"  right as we drove by an Old Navy.

Maybe four to six weeks ago I brought the kids to school one morning.  The teacher always puts a white board outside the classroom with information about what is going on that day.  It always starts with "Happy (insert day of the week)" and then says things like "we have gym today" or "today we will be learning about snow."  Jeff has recognized "Happy (day of the week)" for a while now but he has started to read more words.  One day Jeff was reading all of the two, three and four letter words and making a good attempt at the longer words with some help from me.  One of the moms saw Jeff reading and asked if I had been practicing sight words with him. 

"No," I said trying to play it cool but really bursting with pride.  "He has started reading."

A few weeks later I caught him on video reading a book.  His reading is getting better and better every day and it is amazing me. 

He already recognizes a lot of fingerspelled words and signs so signing secrets is working less and less.  Spelling out c-h-o-c-o-l-a-t-e is one of my last ways to talk over his head.  Pretty soon Derek and I won't be able to have d-e-s-s-e-r-t without s-h-a-r-i-n-g.