Sunday, October 11, 2009

Nothing would surprise me with this kid.

So, this morning during church, my son E, who is 4, had me convinced he could full-on read (possibly in Spanish). Now, I know that he cannot - he's in Reception (which is like Kindergarten but it starts with 4-year-olds here) and he's learning some phonics and can sound out simple words like 'car', 'into', and 'the'. All of which is well and good - in fact, I think he's proceeding quite well and am immensely proud in a proper, dignified, fatherly way.

He was looking through my Bible, as he often does to keep occupied during church, because he knows that his name can be found on a page in Genesis, and because I have scattered throughout it some transparent Jesus stickers that someone gave me and that I put in there during my mission. Also, my Bible is nonstandard - it is a dual-language version with Spanish in the left column and the corresponding English in the right. It is a standard Born-Again Bible in other respects - minimal index, but pages on how to be saved by accepting Jesus, Christ's words in red, etc. Anyway, it's my Bible and its the one I read cover to cover as a missionary and it has all my notes and markings in it. Here's the page E was looking at:

So after he looks at it for a minute, he turns to me and says "He didn't say anything."

Me: "Wait, what?"

E: "Jesus. He didn't say anything"

Me (internal monologue):WHOA! That's verse 7 right there! Not only can he read silently, this kid is reading and paraphrasing what he's reading!

Me (aloud): Uhhhh, how do you know that?


Any guesses? I'll post the answer in comments tomorrow.

5 comments:

Jeff said...

No red?

Lykaon said...

I'm gonna go with no red as well.

Stephanie said...

The no red is a good guess. Before reading that I was just thinking because the picture doesn't show Jesus talking.

jeans said...

Was it standard for missionaries on your mission to use that version of the Bible? I know the church just released an LDS Spanish version after all these years.

Dave Y said...

Yes, it was that he saw no red words - I tried to be subtle adding that in to my description of the Bible, but clearly I am less subtle than I prefer to think. But still, in the moment, I was sure he was comprehending.

@jeans: It was a gift from Grandma Jean - it's KJV English and Reina-Valera Spanish, which is the same translation the church uses but it was not the same Bible they issued us.