A very proud single mama tonight
He did it. The King of Everything did it.
He read me a book tonight; a whole book. Ten Apples Up on Top by Theo leSieg. He even read it with inflection! A few times he asked me to finish the book for him, but he’d gamely continue when I asked him to do so…
Wow. I am so excited for him. He’s on his way.
If your child is on the cusp of learning, we’ve found that a great way to get the KoE to try to read is to find an interesting article in the paper or in a child’s magazine and encourage him to read it. Just today, he read bits of an article in a newspaper about a toy car that can climb the walls!
How do you encourage your child to read?
Tags: education, reading, single-mom, single-motherRelated Stories
POSTED IN: education
7 opinions for A very proud single mama tonight
Amy
Mar 7, 2008 at 1:01 am
Holy crap! That’s great! How the %&^! old is that boy? Ruby can’t even identify her letters. Does it all start happening in a big downhill luge once it starts? We read and read and read but it is certainly still me reading. She doesn’t seem interested yet, and that’s what I understand is the key.
Off to scrub the grout with a toothbrush.
Kelly
Mar 7, 2008 at 2:07 pm
Good for him! Dr. Seuss books were the best thing to teach my daughter to read because they are so repetitive. The first book she read was I’ll Teach My Dog 100 Tricks. Now that she’s nearly 12, she’s deeply engrossed in the Series of Unfortunate Events books.
Shaping Youth
Mar 8, 2008 at 5:44 am
Good for you! I lived on Seussical stuff for quite a long while and still love the Lorax and all the rhyming faves. (even though I had them on mental relay for days)
For me, it was like pulling teeth getting her to read…I used ALL the ‘ad/media techniques’…Incentivized (checkbook for reading/points for pages redeemable for privileges/outings, etc.) tried Sylvan, peers, sitters, etc. and it was always viewed as a ‘chore vs. pleasure’ which is 180 from me…so, difficult to relate…tough, tough, tough…
Now she’s almost 13 and ironically, is going backwards into Seuss/childhood days reading books from yesteryear and poetry together (the chapter books she selects on her own are a tad ‘edgy’ for our ‘book club’ crowd, Natasha Friend series, etc. but overall, I adhere to the YALSA & readergirlz.com picks in ‘Sisterhood of the Travelin’ Pants’ camraderie style…(my daughter’s a huge Gilmore Girls fan, she can ‘relate’!) —
So for the older crowd, here are a couple of tween/teen interviews for ya (the President of YALSA and some of the very cool social media/Readergirlz global book club MySpace chats) –Best, Amy
readergirlz launch: http://www.shapingyouth.org/blog/?p=302
31-’flavorites’ w/YALSA for teens:
http://www.shapingyouth.org/blog/?p=664
Teen Read Week/YALSA Pres. interview:
http://www.shapingyouth.org/blog/?p=713
Meanwhile, I’m inspired to break out the Seuss this weekend! Love it! –a.
christina
Mar 8, 2008 at 12:28 pm
Amy, he will be five at the end of the month. He has been reading, with encouragement and hand-holding, for oh, three or so months. I think it’s just the way his mind works… once we started reading non-fiction to him, things like the amazing National Geographic Kids publication, and articles in the newspaper we knew would catch his interest, his desire to control the process grew.
This has been such a gradual process. the Kid knew his letters early on, but had no interest in connecting letters with words until this year. I think his teacher has done an amazing job getting him ready to read. You guys should definitely consider his school when you put Ruby in.
christina
Mar 8, 2008 at 12:29 pm
Kelly, I love those books! I wish I could read them to the Kid, but he’s so tender-hearted, the idea of those children in constant peril will drive him nuts.
:) I can’t wait to see what book he picks out to read to me tonight.
christina
Mar 8, 2008 at 12:34 pm
Amy, I was a weird kid. I was reading stuff like Lord of the Flies when I was in second grade. I never read Dr. Seuss as a kid… so I went back when I was oh, 16 or 17 and read some of them to see what I had missed.
Thanks for the links! I think I’ve got today’s post, thanks to you.
navi
Mar 16, 2008 at 9:27 am
um… we didn’t encourage our oldest to read (middle is 5, but nonverbal - I’ve heard nonverbal autistics can be taught to read but I’ve no idea how)
We read to her. and she saw us reading. When she was 2, I came home from work to find her dad in one chair, reading, and her in the other one, next to him, with a thick book, upside down, pretending to read…
I was still working with her at 4, when she was in preschool. I picked her up from preschool one day, and her teacher asked me if I knew she was reading. I said “she has a lot of words memorized” and her teacher said, no, she’s reading… She read one book, she’d never seen before to the class, and sounded words out, so I found another one, and she read that one too! I was astonished. from that day forward, she just soaked everything up. She was reading Harry Potter in bits and pieces in kindergarten… unfortunately, since she pretty much taught herself (she potty trained herself, too, though it wasn’t until age 3.5), I’ve no clue how to teach her siblings…
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