Green Eggs and Ham

Our brilliant school principal always reminds us that for all the hours and methods teachers spend to learn to try to teach children how to read, no one knows exactly how it happens. It happens between ages four and seven, and different children really do learn different ways. But what makes it all finally click? Educators do not know.

It is, I suppose, a kind of miracle.

The craziest part is we usually return to our own childhoods as a check and reference point. But try asking any adult about when they learned to read. Most adults do not remember learning. And a lot of adults do not remember not being able to read. Only that suddenly they could, and the world opened up.

Theo's world has opened up.

Benji is standing on the threshold, wanting it more than Theo ever did, because he knows it is something his brother can do that he cannot. He knows it is so close, but he cannot quite do it yet. Oh, how he wants to.

I am mellower this time around. I know it will come, and I know he will be brilliant. Even though he is so different than Theo in all things, in this I have absolute faith.

Last night we read Green Eggs and Ham. It was the end of a long day at the end of a long weekend. I tried to make him read a little. At least the words he knew. We could read it together. He resisted. He said he didn't want to. He said I said he didn't have to read any more after page four. I pushed a little more. But I was worried I was going to traumatize, so finally I pulled back, and only made him read words like "the" and "a" and "I." His so-called popcorn words, because they "pop" out everywhere. (Even on our walls, embedded in giant pieces of popcorn his teacher has made.)

I put him to bed praying I was not pushing him too hard, and into hating reading.

But a strange thing happened.

This morning he crawled into my bed at 6:55 fully dressed, clutching Green Eggs and Ham. I was not even awake. He got into position and started to read. He read through page three, then four. He stumbled sometimes, on words like "would" or "could," and sometimes he asked for help.

But he read that book right through. He said his throat was so dry he could not go on. I was worried he was going to get a brain aneurism from effort. But he persevered, right through until the end.

I was astonished.

Where had that come from? I felt his synapses bending into shape as he read, making connections. I was witnessing the miracle of reading.

His grin was so wide it could have wrapped around his head. Oh, was he proud. He jumped out of bed, and ran to tell Theo (still sleeping.) He said he wanted to call Jonathan (away.) He ran around with the book.

I had seen it come together.

Will it be there this afternoon? This evening? Tomorrow? I don't know for sure.

But he did it. It is in there, and he knows it and I know it.

He read. He really read. And I was there in the moment it all really really came together for the first time.

It is a wonder.

I am awed.

By him. By our brains. By how this happens.