The 3 R's Reading, Rithmetic and Rebounding

Over the last few weeks R has made the jump from learning to read to being..a reader. We had that magical transformation where it just clicked in. He is reading labels and signs and there is less and less of the slow and painful sound it out method. And he is also really getting a handle on math - mentally adding and subtracting single and double digits. I'd like to think that this was a culmination of the months spent with me on the couch reading Aunt Shana's Scholastic readers pamphlet by pamphlet. But the truth is that Riley's academic growth is a direct byproduct of the NCAA tournament.



R spends his every free waking moment playing imaginary basketball these days on the mini-hoop fastened to the laundry room door. He does his own play by play and color commentary whilst shooting and rebounding ("He's fouled!") The score is kept in live time and 2 digit subtraction is often involved ("and the Warriors lead by 4, 27-23") with brief pauses for finger calculations. Not only does he frequently request that we watch his games but if we miss any PART of them we are regaled with a full game recap. Once the real tournament ended, R developed his own brackets, wrote in his teams and ranked them. He may not be able to read words with the silent "e" yet but he can spot Duke, Memphis State and Marquette at twenty paces. He fights with his dad for the sporting green so that he can read the box scores, and steals his Sports Illustrated magazines to scan for familiar names and interesting headlines. We see a bright future for this child - if not in academia then definitely in sportscasting.