Literacy

This morning on the way back from the children's museum the kids were asking me to spell various words for them. They then started asking about spelling just letters or sounds, like "B", or "D", etc. Nora asked, "Does every letter start with itself?" (For instance, "Dee" starts with "D", "Bee" starts with "B", etc.) Without thinking about it much, I said yes.

Then tonight at dinner, Nora said, "I thought of a letter that doesn't start with itself. 'C'. It sounds like 'see', so 'C' starts with 'S'. Not with 'C', which is a 'Cuh' sound."

Two things strike me here. One, how the heck do kids ever learn to read and spell (in English)? Because we have so many exceptions, so many idiosyncratic spellings, so many illogical ways to spell a word, it's a miracle kids ever learn to read at all. Two, Nora is a very logical kid!