3V0862.01 Roots of reading (6/2/80)

Peggy has started reading to us. It began last night when I came to bed and
found Peggy reading a Tintin book to herself. She offered to read to me,
open[ed] to the first page and began: “once a morning, a ship (was) in the water…”
then closed the book and started bouncing on the bed. The passage to which
the book was open showed a liner in mid ocean — but where did
“Once uh morning” come from?

Peggy soon read other things — her “Puppies” book, lacking its covers
and many pages — where “Once uh morning” came up again. (CF. failure
to get her to read in P123.) I finally figured it out — her favorite
little book is “Benjamin Bunny” (3×4″) which she carries around and
often looks in. It begins “One morning a little rabbit sat on a bank…”

What could be a more primitive reading than to begin with a phrase of
an over learned script then continue into the “variable” portion of the
story by describing the agents and actions represented by the pictures.

When you think about it, what could be a better primer than the
realistic cartoons of Tintin – where “people” do dramatic things with
recognizable objects — Peggy first began reading books by recognizing
the actors, eg. “That’s snowy.” “That’s Tintin” (this began at least a
year ago- cf. early notes & recall her close bond to Scurry).

Do I have any past notes which mention Peggy’s first descriptions of actions ?
I think not. Gretchen says it was within the past 2-3 weeks. I think it
was within the past 2 months. Clarifying this relation is important.