Secrets Hidden In A Book

Teaching your child to read is one of the most challenging and rewarding things at the same time. The variance from child to child is astonishing. Gifting my child the ability to read gives me a great sense of accomplishment as a mother!

First, let me explain; I do not RUSH reading. My goal is to develop a strong and curious reader. Pre-K I focused on letter recognition; both uppercase & lowercase. Kindergarten I focused on phonemic awareness. So many times I see children in the school system rushed into reading. Each week they are given a new list of site words that they “learn” to read strictly by memorization. I am NOT that teacher.

By allowing early readers to develop phonemically you are building their reading repertoire. So far I am very pleased with my readers in the house, but it didn’t come easily. Each child faces their own set of challenges. Some are more frustrating than others. My youngest son took the longest to read. His personality was, and still is, that he doesn’t want to dedicate the “time” to read. He would rather draw or right something…. (or scream for video games.)

Everything that I had known to do before wasn’t working. I created games, inserted reading in the most obscure places (while we were cooking, while we were in the car), and each time, I just wasn’t getting anywhere. Developmentally, I think he just wasn’t “there” yet and that is OK. (This is one of the things that irritates me about how we educated our children. We standardize everything, while doing so, we sometimes set the bar to high or to low depending on the child, which is frustrating for the child and the parent.) So I decided all in all I needed to switch up my game. I have been teaching for quite sometime now and started brainstorming.  What “hooked” him, I believe, was dedicating more of his reading time to online books. I started downloading and visiting sites with interactive stories. I had done this with the previous children, but not as much. It gained his attention long enough, allowing him to read along with the storyteller, that he decided he didn’t need someone else to read it. He also has great support from his two older brothers!

He is now blossoming as a reader. He is reading early readers and transitioning into early chapter books. Was it the interactive online books, was it that he was just now reaching this milestone? I don’t know, but now that we have moved out of the online interactive books, we have grabbed his attention with, “secret books for boys.” This has now captivated him. I love that his brothers play along in this game. Gideon will go in depth about how he read it when he first was learning to read and it taught him so much!

The books that we are talking about are  Juniper books called “The Boys Book of Adventure.” These books are creative. They describe tying knots, capturing snakes, and telling stories of adventure. These are the “secrets” that Levi want’s to uncover, and he can only do so by reading and he knows that. This is what has “sparked” him into the next level. Building that curiosity will compel him to continue to seek out these “adventures.”

“Are You Ready to Face The Challenge, Levi?” We say while toiling with him. I can’t help but giggle when I think about him getting excited to discover the hidden codes in these books. I think about where we were just six months ago, and how I know he was frustrated, and I was too just by his frustration! Another stage accomplished. Another reader in the house. The joy of learning to read for him is like the joy of teaching him to read for me. Makes my heart swell.

If you are interested in the Adventure books for boys, visit the link below:

https://juniperbooks.com/store/boys-adventure-set/

If you have any suggestions of other great books geared towards adventures and secrets, please put them in the comments.

Have a great day!