Writing Prompt: Reading Zelda

In this month’s essay, Lorraine Rice recalls when she realized her five-year-old son learned to read while playing a Nintendo game. She writes, “In the end, the technology I dreaded was what accelerated my son’s development as a reader. And as hard as it is to admit, I think it even inspired him in a way the printed word alone did not. Sol would have learned to read eventually without video games, but I think coming to it the way he did, following his own path, a path so foreign to me that it frightened me, made his arrival all the more gratifying. Gaming was his beginning, and from there he never looked back.”

Of your child(ren)’s developmental milestones, which one took you most by most surprise? Did you reflect on your own role in this event? Did you take credit or simply marvel at your child’s inherent intelligence?