Reading Crusoe at Age 4

Long before he went into kindergarten, which at Armadillo Creek elementary school has always been an all-day program, Johnny Miller would read. Like his mother, he would read just about any book he could get his hands on.

He used to go to the old bookshelf, just inside the hallway, and pick up one of his favorites, like Robinson Crusoe, and start to read. When he had been a toddler, his Mommy always read to him and his brother, often reading whatever it was that she'd be reading, whether a western or a sci-fi story, or whatever. The stories she told intrigued him - they were a window into another time and place - another life.

He developed a liking for all kinds of words. Books and stories called him somehow, and listening to the tales would liven up his imagination. The shipwrecked man, stranded on a desert island, somehow making do with the little that he had, and even making a nice life for himself, after he had been stranded with pretty much nothing but the shirt on his back and whatever had washed up on the shore.

And, although, at four, he couldn't read all the words in Robinson Crusoe, he could pick up the book, and starting in the early pages, he could read the numbers at the bottom, or tops, of each page. One, two, three, ... up to ten, then, "Mommy, what's this word?" "Eleven," she'd say. And then, "Eleven, twelve, ... Mommy, what's this word?" "Thirteen."

And, before long, he could count to a hundred, even more. And, so, long before kindergarten he was reading books like Robinson Crusoe, one page number at a time.