I really learned to love reading when I was in elementary school....I think it was the summer between my 5th and 6th grade years. In an attempt to keep me busy my mom created a chore chart. There were all kinds of things on that chart like dusting and vacuuming, cleaning out the refrigerator, washing the cars, and reading. Every task was assigned a certain number of points, once points were accumulated I could use them to buy things that I wanted.....I remember I really wanted a Simpson's family figurine set! Anyway.....reading would get me 1 point for every 2 pages I read. Me being the genius that I am discovered that the fastest, easiest way to accumulate points was to read. I didn't have to lift a finger (other than my normal weekly chores) and I still got all of the points and prizes! I had my mom take me to the library every couple of weeks, and the rest is history. Needless to say my mom did not have the same chart the next summer! Before that summer I was really pretty ambivalent about reading. I wonder what would have happened if things didn't work out the way they did!
I read to my girls every single day! I've heard that you should read to your kids at least 20 minutes a day....we do that every night before bedtime, but we also read stories before nap time for about that long, and throughout the day when the mood strikes us. I take Maddie and sometimes Charlotte to the library every two weeks to pick out new books and we usually get 20-25 books. The girls are still too young to really pick their own books out, I think it's a bit overwhelming with so many to choose from, so I pick most of them, and they pick a few. I get so excited when we get home from library day! I love to read new books to the girls for the first time (Dan always lets me do bedtime on library day!) and see how they react to them! Which ones they like, which ones they get really excited about, which ones they can't sit still through. I really like when they ask to read a book over again. I've watched their vocabulary grow exponentially, I've watched them learn how to sit still for longer and longer periods of time, I've watched their imaginations take flight and I've watched them learn about the world around them. All from reading!
I really hope that they retain this love for reading and being read to. I really hope that they see me reading and the joy I find in books and that it influences them! I can't wait until they are old enough for us to read chapter books together.....that will be lot's of fun! Until then, here's a few of their current favorites:
Great book with lot's of sounds that they can read along with!
This is a really beautiful book
My kids LOVE broccoli, and this book is talked about all the time at the dinner table!
Beautiful illustrations!
This series by Doreen Cronin is fantastic! My girls LOVE all 3!
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