Who is reading to whom?

TJ is starting to enjoy reading. You can see the light has turned on inside his head and that books are starting to come alive for him. I love this, because I read incessantly as a child, and want him to enjoy it as much as I did. On library day, instead of bringing home books on disasters (Titanic, Hindenberg, etc.) he is now bringing home books he can read by himself. It's not that he doesn't love the disaster books, he just suddenly has the desire to check out books he can read without much assistance from me.

But something strange is going on. Last night after dinner, I was helping TJ with his spelling words. "Escape" was one of his challenge words for this week, and TJ struggled with it a little (I can't blame him. It sounds like it starts with "s"). I pronounced the word slowly and gave TJ a second to think about it. Sam was sitting next to TJ at the counter, arranging tea light candles in different patterns (Sam is back on his candle kick, since it's too cold for sprinklers now). TJ continued to puzzle over 'escape' when Sam quietly said, "Eh, eh, eh-scape. It starts with an 'e', TJ". I stared at him and he said, "What? It does!"

Later, TJ was reading a book about Mr. Putter and Tabby the cat to his little brothers. Every once in a while, he'd stumble over a word, but overall, he was doing quite well. Then he got too a long word that completely had him stumped. Sam said, "The word is 'scooter', TJ". TJ agreed and went on reading. Sam didn't interrupt again; he just enjoyed looking over his brother's shoulder.

Part of me is as proud as can be. Part of me wonders what else that little boy knows that he isn't sharing with us.