Learning to read

Site de Paulilles.
At Nobel's old dynamite factory in the bay between Port Vendres and Banyuls, walkways cross the gardens and meadows between the workshops and the sea. Those that are closest to the sea are marked with the imprints of pin parasol needles: a nod to the trees which fringe the beach.
Those which cross the meadows are imprinted with the grasses which grow either side of them.
From time to time, along the path, we found these: identified meadow flowers.
Miranda, with a six year old's thirst for reading, ran from one to another, laboriously vocalising the multisylabic and unfamiliar.
Gabriel, a long way behind, bent over each image and silently traced each letter.
This, he told me, was his way of reading.