MTG

About 12 years ago I entered the world of high fantasy, with Dungeons and Dragons, Tolkien, Tad Williams, Marion Zimmer Bradley and Magic the Gathering. I enjoyed the flexibility of "Magic", a 2 player game in it's simplest form, multi-player options, or when a bored teenager, play-test your decks against yourself. I played for several years, before my contempories where spending too much money and too much time on it and totally outstripped me in there playing ability. Or maybe I got Laid. Anyway, my younger brothers where not very literate when we entered this realm, and it always confused me how something so complex as a rulebook, or deck of cards managed to teach someone to read. Thankfully, with the move out of toddlerhood comes the joys of educational concerns.

My siblings and I where/are home-educated autonomously, as was/is the Man. I put it like that because I don't feel education stops when a government has decided so, but continues throughout life, if you let it. I am certainly still learning in the same manner I was 15 years ago.

So this is where I come from in terms of parenting, but I still ponder on how the process works!

The Boy is now school-age. He plays Role-playing games, builds crazy Lego structures, and sews pullovers for his bears. But a strange thing is happening. He is Learning To Read. Because he wants to?! I surmise because he wants to do things he needs to read for. Like playing Magic. He has figured he is at a disadvantage playing open-handed with me telling him what his cards do. I am putting many cards with the same artwork in his deck, that aren't too complicated. So he is coming across the terms "Haste", "Shadow", and "Flying" fairly frequently. He started the writing of garbled letters in huge long lines, then getting literate people to read them for him(does everyone do that?). My heart melted.

If I then suggest we do something to advance his progress, he sees the connection to an interest he has and the activity I am offering, and he takes it.

So thankyou, Richard Garfield, for creating something that makes learning to read fun for parents, and is bringing my son closer into my life.