"God" & "the"

One of Ella's treasured toys since she was about 15months old has been a tiny Gideons Bible. We have three...a white, green and orange one. Ella has gravitated towards the orange one. Even when she 15mo, she would sit for long lengths of time at the table, pretending to look through and "read" the Bible.A few weeks ago, she decided to bring her little orange Bible to church. On the way to church, Ella got excited and said, there is "God" in my Bible. See....G - O - D". This is really the first word (besides her name) that she has really pointed out/identified and read in a book on her own. We told her that she could probably find the word "God" on every page. She started looking and then said, "That is going to be too much work!" It was precious to me that this was her first word she read and the book was His Word. This past Sunday on the way to church she discovered and read the word "the" in her Bible.

We have been working on phonics since Ella turned four and she has a few other words she can write out and spell like "zoo" and "dog", but had not really made the effort to point them out in a book yet. It is very exciting to be involved with teaching her to read and see the excitement she has for it.