RICHER THAN GOLD
You may have tangible wealth untold
Caskets of jewels and coffers of gold.
Richer than I you can never be
I had a mother who read to me.
~ Strickland Gillilan (1869-1954)
I can attest to the veracity of the above poem because I did have a mom who read to me. And I loved every minute of it. Sure, I could read all the books she read aloud, but there was just something magical about being able to share the story with someone else. Some of my fondest memories of being homeschooled were when lunchtime would come and my mother would pull out a story and read while my brothers and I ate. We would always beg her for "just one more chapter." I still have distinct memories of the books Secret of the Andes, Follow My Leader, My Side of the Mountain, and David and the Phoenix and the way I imagined the wonderful adventures unfolding to my mother's voice. It has easily been two decades since I heard / read those stories, and I still remember every one.
This relates to the couple of comments and questions about Kid A's ability to read and how that came about. I wish there was a "secret" to this that I could unveil with a flourish and then everyone would clap and cheer and tell me just how clever I am. But, reality is often a great deal duller than my somewhat active imagination.
The greatest influence on Kid A's ability to read is the fact that I've been reading aloud to him for as long as he's been around. We will sit and read books together for upwards of an hour a day (not usually all in one chunk though). As we read, I'll point to certain words and we'll sound out the letters together. And about a year ago, we started to play "learning to read" using a little chalk board I have in the living room when Kid D was taking a nap. I'd make up silly songs about vowels and silly stories about phonics rules. (The "e" at the end of a word jumps over the consonant and when it lands on the other vowel it flattens out its sound.) I didn't have a set schedule or method or anything like that. We've mainly just played and I would point out words to him where ever we might be and we'd just sound them out together.
When Kid A turned 4 years old (March 2010), I found a very handy web site called Shelfari that helped me keep track of all the books we were reading. I really liked it because I could rate the books and then add tags to them. This way I could quickly find all the books we've read about turtles or about honesty and then see which ones were worth reading again. Since I've started keeping track, we've read over 900 books together. When we hit 1,000 mark, I'm going to throw us a little celebration. After all, the love of reading is the beginning of a lifetime of learning.
Oh, and the icing on all this cake? We live within walking distance of a library.
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