Miriam has totally caught onto reading over the past few months. It was with Dick and Jane that she really figured things out. She had gotten to the point where she was reading most of the stories without help, then one time she was saying wacky words that I didn't recognize at all. I looked at what she was reading and said, "Honey, you know that word," meaning, "Quit goofing off and read it right." "But Baby Sally's saying it, Mama, and she can't talk very well." I but had to laugh. Sure enough, she created a different voice for every character. Jane talks high, Mother talks higher, and Father is deep. Dick is kind of like a beach bum hippie (kinda like Shaggy on Scooby Doo) and Sally starts all words with "N" (kinda like Scooby and the R thing he has going on). It kind of gets annoying, especially when Dick and Sally talk back and forth for two pages, but I'm totally impressed with her ability and desire to not only read the words but to own the characters. When she's tired, though, she tells me "I'm just going to read it all regular." Which she pronounces "reg-lee-ar." Gosh I love this girl! Anyway, here is Dick and Jane as performed by Miss Miriam. I looked for a story where the characters switch off pretty often so as to highligh the vocal personalities. I chose the one where Tim the teddy bear falls into the construction hole but (don't worry) the bulldozer brings him back to Sally. The first time we read this one it was kind of emotion. Remember, this is a pretty darn empathetic girl we're working with here.
When she saw I had quit recording she was a little worried that the story hadn't yet been resolved (refer to the previously mentioned natural abundance of emotionality). So we filmed the rest of it just in case you're trying to figure how exactly it is that Tim returns to Sally's loving arms.
