On Reading

I love how this blog keeps everyone who's interested up to date on these boys that mean so much to us. I deeply appreciate everyone's interest in the many ways they grow and change throughout each year (almost 5 of them already!!); it truly is my joy to share the pictures I love to take, the funny things they say and the stories I hope I never forget.

Tonight I want to share with you how proud we are of our 4 year olds that can read! If you have followed this blog for any length of time you know how important books are in our family and you know it has been that way since these boys were born. They have been raised on a steady diet of books (I always say pediatricians should ask parents how many books a day they read to their children along with how much milk they drink/food they eat!!).

It was well over a year ago that Ian and Henry expressed an interest in learning to read. I taught them some high frequency sight words that we see on signs, the names in our family, etc... and they soaked it right up. We talked about the parts of a book (front cover, back cover, binding, title page), what it means to author and to illustrate, what characters and themes are... and we read. And read. They learned about punctuation, inflection, quotation... By the time they turned 4 they were flat out asking me to teach them to read. I couldn't resist and they were ready- there was no reason not to. In January I bought some early readers and we dove in.

Here's Ian, 6 weeks shy of 5, with a picture book we checked out at the library today that he's never seen before:





We are so proud of these boys and how they set this goal and reached it. It has been amazing to watch and the progress is all their own.