The vocabulary of my son (age 2) is coming along nicely. He can repeat many words, and will gleefully point at things he knows the word for and call it out. So we do a lot of reading together, with him pointing out words and so on.
My daughter (age 3) took over this duty tonight. She guides him through words, encourages him, and with great and genuine exuberance calls out “great job” when he repeats after her.
As soon as she began, I backed off. She was doing an absolutely wonderful job and I couldn’t improve on it. I watched, proud as could be, as my three-year-old taught my two-year-old to read.
She leans on the shoulder of her big sister, my 8-year-old, as the big sister reads more advanced books out loud for her younger sister’s benefit.
Ripples upon ripples. You never teach one person – that’s why passing knowledge on to someone else is so good. It keeps going, keeps spreading. It’s a good deed you can do in the world – just share a piece of learning with someone, and watch it grow.
The Opportunity Machine 