My Kindergartener is an Emerging Reader

This weekend, I experienced a profound moment as a mother.  My Darling Daughter 1 (DD1) read a book to me independently for the first time, cover to cover.  Yes, the book was a leveled reader text with a basic plot and characters that have only one syllable names.  Yet still, my daughter's basic level reading voice was, indeed, music to my ears.

I do not, myself, remember learning to read.  I do not remember laboring over words, struggling to sound out words by going letter by letter, or becoming frustrated if/when I could not readily see the pattern in a series of words.  I do not remember the first time I read to my parents, nor actually do I remember much about reading with them.  Instead, when I recall my childhood I remember myself as an already established reader who seemingly has always loved to read. My hope for my daughters is that the process of learning to read does not thwart their emerging capacity, confidence, nor pleasure as readers.

In "A Parent's Guide to the Integrated Curriculum," published and distributed by my school district, the learning goals for all PreK through Fifth grade students in Reading are that they will "develop the knowledge and skills essential to becoming literate, thoughtful communicators," who can "strategically read texts with fluency, purpose, and comprehension," and who can "understand and appreciate language and literature as a catalyst for deep thought and emotion."  For kindergarteners, this overarching reading goal is translated into learning literary routines as well as the text features of fiction and non-fiction, becoming fluent with phonetic word recognition, and acquiring a strong foundational vocabulary and handwriting skills.

I find myself wondering:  Can this emphasis on developing students' foundational skill set for reading detract from fostering a sense of joy, curiosity, and imagination in students through reading?  I wonder: Will learning to read serve as a kind of portal to the enticing and wide-ranging world of learning for my daughters, or could it become a merely perfunctory task required by school for my DD1 and DD2?   I wonder: What kind of reader my DD1 will become?