Danny's Reading Problem and the Fun He Had Fixing It!

Danny, may have been pretending to use his tablet, but he really was thinking about what his dad had said while practicing his speech in the car, "If humans had never asked questions we would still be living in caves. It takes smart people to solve our problems and smart people get smarter by seeking information from smarter people and that is why we are here today!"Danny jumped up from his chair. His Dad was right, Danny was struggling with reading, and he knew he needed help, he needed to talk to the smartest person he knew. He needed to talk to . . .Grammy!Danny, kind of groaned, he knew his ABC's. Grammy replied yes, Danny did know his alphabet, but did he know how just 26 letters could create more the than 140,000 words that were currently being used in our English vocabulary? Did he know that six of those letters were, like the big shots of the show, because at least one of them had to appear in every one of those words? Learning to read was like chipping away at a giant iceberg. Recognizing the letters and reciting them in order only chipped away a tiny sliver! However if he knew how to figure out words he could knock off a very big chunk and that would help him read. Grammy had one more question. Could Danny tell her what the most important word he needed to know in any story? Danny said of course, he could not, no one could, not even a genius! Grammy laughed and made a very loud buzzing sound to let Danny know, his answer was wrong!The most important word to know . . . is the next one! And if he learned how to figure out words, he would never have to worry about his ability to read a book!After all books are just words strung together to make sentences, sentences are strung together to make paragraphs that are strung together to tell a story and Grammy had a story she was about to share!