Learning the alphabet by reading with Daddy.

I watched David and Samuel looking at a book today.  Samuel wants to look at grown-up books a lot, preferably while sitting on a lap and getting to turn the pages.  David had been paging through, I believe, The Encyclopedia of Bible Difficulties, and Samuel happily joined in.

It was a really sweet teaching moment to see.  Samuel pointed at the words and I asked him what they were: "words!" he told me, and then he told me that words are made up of letters.  David and I sang the alphabet song for him, and then David flipped through until he found the name Samuel and showed it to the boy.  They named the letters together.  It was sweet to see, and I discovered that Samuel really seems to be starting on the path to learning the alphabet, which is great.

They also came across the name Hosea at one point, and Samuel said that that word said 'Jesus'.  That turned into a conversation on to whom Jesus loves (hint: the answer rhymes with 'smeverybody), and then we got to name people.  This plays really well into night time prayers, because I've been trying (unsuccessfully until last night) to get Samuel to verbally participate in prayers rather than just listen to David or myself and occasionally chime in with 'Amen'.  Last night he was willing to repeat what we said; another step forward.