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Post by Noa on Jun 17, 2019 20:46:42 GMT -6
It probably helped that the letter cards, at least, were unassuming black type on white cards, with nothing about them to suggest that they were intended for the use of children. Perhaps he had already forgotten about those other cards, distracted as he was with this task, but unfortunately they would be returning to those eventually.
For now, however, he still had the alphabet itself to learn. She played one clip and waited for him to find the correct letter to go with it, then played another. He was better at it than she had expected, given that they had only gone over the alphabet together twice. This was not to say that he was very good, but given time, he could come up with roughly half of them correctly. And as they repeated letters, his rate of success improved, though some of that was almost certainly just the result of short term recall.
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Post by Noa on Jun 17, 2019 20:47:22 GMT -6
It would take more time and practice before he was completely familiar with all the letters, but they were off to a good start. Once he was able to associate the sounds with the individual letters, Rabbit would move on and begin using the other, more juvenile looking word cards with him. Whatever his distaste for them, it was still the next step.
As the session came to an end, she left him with the voice recorder and the letter cards. He was still studying them as she walked away, but she would see tomorrow how much he had managed to accomplish with those.
The next day, when she visited him again, Rabbit reviewed the alphabet once more with the creature. She then had him match the sounds to the letters, which he was able to do much more quickly and accurately now. He must have practiced a great deal with the cards.
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Post by Noa on Jun 17, 2019 20:47:45 GMT -6
It was an admirable effort. But the alphabet was merely the components of words, and rote memorization of these would only take him so far. She wanted to see whether he could take those sounds he had memorized and decipher them in context. It was time for the word cards.
He watched her bring them out, and lay the pictures out one by one. As she did, he seemed to deflate. Apparently he wasn't over his displeasure with their appearance. But Rabbit hoped that having a task to do with them would provide some distraction for him, and laid out a single word card for his consideration.
"This is a word you know," she said. It had been a simple one--- red. There were words that were slightly more difficult in the mix, but to begin, she had chosen one with only three letters and no odd or exceptional spelling or sound rules.
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Post by Noa on Jun 17, 2019 20:49:01 GMT -6
It was best to give him what odds she could for success, rather than something too strange and challenging from the get-go. It was a difficult enough thing to learn as it was. Nevertheless, she said, "Please let me know if you would like my assistance."
She had said this, and she was certainly willing to provide help, but in truth she felt that he ought to be able to do this. The creature stared at the card for some time, but he must have been in agreement with her, for he did not take her up on her offer. After a moment, she could see him place a claw on the edge of the card, following each letter one by one. This was a promising sign.
At length, he pointed to the card with the corresponding color. Rabbit nodded. "Very good," she said, putting the two cards together. "Now for the next one."
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Post by Noa on Jun 17, 2019 20:49:42 GMT -6
She gave him a few similar three letter words first, these being the easiest ones she could manage from the available selection they had. It was clear that this was not easy for him, at least not right now, and she didn't want to discourage him by making things too difficult too soon. But once they had run out of those words, she picked another card and set it in front of him.
The card read, 'lake'. The creature, who had been slowly getting faster at puzzling out the words and their corresponding sounds, now frowned over this one. He frowned over it for some time, running his claw down the line of it and then again, at one point even going over it backwards.
Eventually he did point towards the picture of the lake, but it was clear that this was the result of much effort and some guess work besides.
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Post by Noa on Jun 17, 2019 20:49:55 GMT -6
"You're right," said Rabbit. "This word is a little different from the ones I've given you until now. Remember that a vowel has different sounds that it can make. When there is another vowel supporting it like this, even when they are separated by another consonant, the sound of the first vowel changes--- and the second vowel may be silent."
The creature shook his head as if to clear it. "Yes," said Rabbit, "there are a great many rules. It takes human children years to learn to read fluently. You are making very good progress in light of that."
He didn't seem satisfied with that, but at least reading wasn't the kind of thing where a surplus of effort could lead to injury. At least, Rabbit didn't think so, anyway. If it helped motivate him to work harder on it, then for the moment she thought it couldn't do very much harm.
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Post by Noa on Jun 17, 2019 20:50:44 GMT -6
In the days that followed, the two of them did more of the same when it came to practicing his reading skills. Sometimes she would come back to his already having matched the cards, and increasingly she was having to find or make more cards with different words on them. When she noticed herself doing this, she decided that she may as well move to the next step.
The following day, she came back to the barn with a few books in tow. At first the creature seemed heartened to see them, but as soon as he got a closer look at them, his attitude soured. Rabbit had anticipated this, but there was nothing for it. "It is best to start with something simple," she said, handing him a book whose title said, 'See Spot Run'. On the cover was a cartoonish illustration of a Vulticus running through a grassy field in the sun.
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Post by Noa on Jun 17, 2019 20:50:58 GMT -6
The creature shot her a withering look. He snatched the book with ill grace, and flipped through it glaring at the illustrations as much as poring over the text.
Rabbit still had him go over the word cards with her. It was only at the end of the session that she said, "If you would read these on your own at first, and then I will read them aloud to you on my next visit. Then you can ascertain how well you managed to comprehend it on your own."
The creature gave the books themselves a dubious look, but otherwise seemed to have no problems with the arrangement. Rabbit nodded and left him to it.
When she returned the next day, the creature was waiting for her with several books by his side. He seemed almost impatient for her to close the last bit of distance between them, and then for her to pick up a book and open it.
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Post by Noa on Jun 17, 2019 20:51:15 GMT -6
It seemed that he had gotten over his initial distaste for the books after all, and read them for the sake of learning the skill, if not for their own merit.
Almost as soon as she opened the book, she was greeted with the creature pointing out a word with a claw. "Ah," said Rabbit. He must have run into a few problem words, and wanted her to read them for him to see what they were.
There was some little irony in the word he had pointed out. "That one is 'easy'," she said. He looked at her oddly for a moment, so she clarified: "The word is read as 'easy'. The A is there only to modify the sound of the E, and the Y is acting as a vowel with the 'ee' sound. And as for the S… Sometimes it will sound like Z. I am sorry. Common's alphabet was created a long time ago, and its words do not always follow it's own rules very well anymore."
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Post by Noa on Jun 17, 2019 20:51:59 GMT -6
The creature made a noise that might well have been a groan. Rabbit hesitated for a moment, then patted his shoulder consolingly. "With time, you will remember the exceptions, and then it will be easy. So I was told." Rabbit herself never had to learn to read; the ability was programmed in. It made it somewhat difficult to give advice on the topic, as she was not intimately familiar with the process of learning this. Aster might have done a good deal better, but the creature absolutely refused to have him. Thus, he was stuck with whatever she could manage to do for him.
They went through the other words that had troubled him throughout the book, and Rabbit explained them one by one. After each explanation, the creature would stare at the page again, perhaps committing the tricky word to memory so that he could recall it again when he encountered it later.
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Post by Noa on Jun 17, 2019 20:52:45 GMT -6
Or perhaps what he was doing was painstakingly reading the whole sentence again to see what greater understanding he could derive from it now that he had filled in the blanks. Whichever it was, it made for slow going. They only got through two of the books that he had brought, for all that they were picture books without many words in them, and for all that they had very simple language indeed.
This was, Rabbit realized, not going to be the work of a few sessions. She had always known on some level that it would fake a long time, but only now did the scale of the undertaking become clear to her. He had been very fast at absorbing the alphabet, after all.
But as to just how long it would take, she could still hardly guess. And perhaps it was for the best that that was the case, upon further consideration.
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Post by Noa on Jun 17, 2019 20:53:18 GMT -6
She would not wish to impress any expectations of her own upon him, lest it hinder his progress. Sometimes, even when one didn't wish to convey one's expectations, they were unconsciously communicated.
As the days wore on, the creature managed to work his way through the most basic and inane of the picture books. At that point Rabbit didn't know if his reading comprehension was really well enough for him to move on--- it might well have been best for him to pore over them a little longer. But he was so clearly impatient for something else, anything else, that she brought him some more complex picture books after all.
They were still picture books, as she didn't feel that he had either the speed or the stamina, as far as reading was concerned, for anything without them. But at least these were fairy tales, and meant for slightly older children.
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Post by Noa on Jun 17, 2019 20:53:35 GMT -6
She didn't expect him to take to them as well as he did. At first he was just as skeptical of them as he had been of the first books she gave them. But she did catch him rereading a few, and on occasion he would demand that she read some to him too, even though he had nothing he seemed uncertain about in its vocabulary.
For the most part he disdained the ones with princesses in them, although she often caught him lingering upon the monsters, or upon the evil things like witches and queens. Beauty and the Beast held his attention for the Beast alone. Their edition of that story was an old one, and the illustrations of the Beast were rather imaginatively ghastly. He returned to Puss in Boots often too, but having watched him read it, Rabbit wasn't sure whether he enjoyed that particular story. It seemed rather to her as though it made him unhappy, but she had no idea why.
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Post by Noa on Jun 17, 2019 20:54:34 GMT -6
End: Read
And she found that she had underestimated his aptitude, or perhaps his determination, to learn to read. He was able to read the fairy tale books well enough to make out the gist of their stories even at first, though it took him a long time back then to get through even a single book, and now that he had something more tolerable to practice with, his improvement was more rapid. It was fast approaching the point where she was inclined to let him have access new books again, this time of his own choosing.
"Are you fond of monsters?" she asked at one point. He seemed surprised that she would ask, so Rabbit explained. "If I know a little more of your preferences, I can begin to find books that might better suit your interests. You are reaching the point where you can read simple books, and your options are broadening considerably."
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Post by Noa on Jun 17, 2019 20:55:03 GMT -6
The creature thought on this for some time. The answer he came up with in the end was to point to himself, and then to her, and then to the house in the distance, where Aster lived.
It was an unusual proposal only in that it involved the house. The creature must have known that it was where Aster resided. He never went near it if he could help it, and he had certainly never gone inside. But now he was asking the two of them to go together.
Rabbit could guess at his intent. "You wish to go together, to see what books there are to read?" she said. He nodded, looking pleased that she had figured it out so quickly. There were times in which he had to try several times to convey his meaning before she struck upon the right interpretation, and even then it tended to be imprecise.
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