Books and Reading

There's a school of thought out there that says you shouldn't teach a kid younger than 6 how to read, or any academics for that matter. I disagree! I learned how to read at age 4 all by myself! I would look through other kids' readers and it just made sense to me. Granted, Spanish is my first language and the fact that the vowels have just ONE sound each made things easy (at least for me). So I can't imagine not knowing how to read.

My girls know all their letters and their sounds, but reading is a different story (it is English, after all). I've been working on it with Ava (4), but she just doesn't get it. Hakuna matata I say. But it does boggle my mind how she knows the following on sight: Kroger, Walmart, McDonald's (of course), Wendy's, Home Depot, and Lowe's among others. We went to see Sam the Lovesick Snowman (a really cute story about a snowman who falls in love with a stove) at the Center for Puppetry Arts today. Ava has a fascination with buildings, especially tall ones, of which there are many in midtown Atlanta. So on the way home she points to a building in the distance and says, "Mommy, that building with the red letters says 'Coke.' " It was, in fact, the Coca Cola building (and it says Coca Cola, not Coke), but my point is, how does she know??? We rarely buy sodas!

Another quirk my children have is that they like to sleep with books. OK, stuffed animals and books. If it's one we've read that night that they especially enjoyed, they fight over who gets to sleep with it. And not under their pillow, but next to them. I don't know how it started, but it's kind of peculiar, don't you think? Does it mean they'll have a life long love of books? I sure hope so. I remember back when I used to read *sigh*. I love books, too, but I don't sleep with them! I hope this means I can look forward to all of us sitting around reading or discussing books we've read. One day, when I'm not so exhausted at 9pm, maybe I can start reading again...