Chase has been dabbling in reading for a while. I know she can read but she is often timid about it. She’s not completely fluent yet and her personality type sometimes requires absolute perfection. Otherwise, everything is terrible. Terrible, terrible, terrible. But I knew she could do it because I noticed that she’s highly motivated by certain things. Notes on your paper? She wants to know what they say. But what I really wanted was to see her sitting down with a book. Not instead of but in addition to her other favorite things to do. So I got this great idea. I got the basket of easy readers out of her room and plopped them on the kitchen table. Right in the middle of it. I kind of thought all of these things would fall into place. Maybe reading is on her to do list but, if it is, it must be way down at the bottom.
Next thing you know she was all, hey I can read this! Why the books have to be smack dab in the middle of the kitchen table when there are, literally, books all over the house? Who knows. But this basket is filled with only those very basic level one books. You know, the ones that feature all of their very favorite and your very least favorite characters. Barbie! Strawberry Shortcake! My Little Pony! But she reads them! One after another she reads them. And, right now, it’s kind of making the kitchen the place to be.
How do you encourage your children to read?
We have books everywhere. Maureen is into those Rainbow Magic fairy books. Some people on Goodreads blasted them because each series is basically the same. Jack Frost does something to the fairies and Kirsty and Rachel have to save the day. They are a little repetitive, but I say feed the beast. She will expand past fairies.
I don’t have to encourage. She demands it. As for confidence, she’s 100% confidence that her interpretation of the book is how the author really intended the words to read. So, it’s impossible to correct her. She can read a good number of simple books and, once she decides to take her time and try, I’m sure she’ll be able to get into the rest of reading. I’m not in a hurry. She’s still in preschool, but she does like to rush. It’s a very exciting time and she is so very proud of herself.
She’s still in kiddie books – Mo Willems’s Elephant & Piggy books which are perfectly good starter books, Eric Carle, anything with a princess or bug. She’s not too picky actually.
I’ve been thinking of you because Laura found the Care Bears on Netflix the other day so she’s been more into them than anything else.