Can you remember learning to read? Do you remember the first time you saw a word and knew what it said and meant? Chances are that that’s a stretch for most of us. Why? Most of us can remember the first time we rode a bike, swam across the pool, or successfully made our first delicious chocolate chip cookies. Why can’t we remember the first time a word had meaning? Because learning to find meaning in words, spoken and written, is more like a river running between two banks, and these other tasks are more like the stepping stones we use to cross the water.
