3V1069.03 Her first orthographic word: “by” (very impt) (12/26/80)

Especially as we read the titles of Peggy’s many books, Peggy imitates
my pointing to words and saying words. After I read “The Tale of Peter
Rabbit,” she pointed more or less randomly: “The” (for the tale of);
“Tale” (for Peter); “of” (Rabbit) “Peter” (by) (Rabbit” ( Beatrix Potter) —
most uncertainly. Here I corrected her — pointing out “by” and
“Beatrix Potter”. When we turned to “The Story of Benjamin Bunny”
I continued “by Beatrix Potter.” Here Peggy noticed something (while
contrasting the frontispieces of the two books) and said, pointing at
the word “by”), “These little ones are the same.”

What is significant here is her first specific notice of a graphic string as
an entity — her first perception of a graphic word as such.