Reading 101

One of the favorite things my husband and i love to do with our children every day (usually in the evening before bed) is to read to them. It is so cozy to sit next to them, to capture their full attention, to read the story, and to listen/answer their questions. Now that my son is getting older (4.5years old), the tables are beginning to turn as he has started to read to us.

I'm not talking about reading Moby Dick or The Fountain Head type of stuff, but rather the "Biscuit the Dog" , level 1 reading type of stuff! He started reading a couple of months ago after he received some level 1 books for Christmas. The stories consist of about five sentences and have three to five words per sentence. (Okay so we are really talking about stories that consist of 25 words!) Nonetheless watching him hold the book, read the title of the book, open the book to the first page, read the words, turn the page and finish the book is amazing to me!

I can't recall when i first began to read, but i do recall that it was later (6+). In fact, i remember learning the alphabet in Kindergarten! My son's preschool teacher told me that children on average learn how to read between ages 3-8. That is quite a large variance in age and experience. Reading as we all know is so important as it teaches us how to think, imagine, write, speak, vocabulary, etc...

Obviously my son still has a long way to go in terms of "learning how to read" and developing a deep love and appreciation of reading. He has only just begun! So we can still look forward to reading to him every night for many years to come. In fact, I hope he will always let me read to him when he is old as his parents are!