Chapters

On this evening's excursion to the public library, PB Monster picked out four juvenile chapter books.  Three of them had dragons on the cover and the fourth has tentacles.  PB Monster was excited to learn that his new favorite movie, "How to Train your Dragon", is also a series of books.  The reason PB Monster was in the juvenile chapter book section is that it shares wall space with the libraries "Juvenile Readers" section.  PB Monster wants to learn to read.

I'm excited to share my love of reading.  For the last year or two, I've been working on precursors to reading.  PB Monster can read his favorite books from memory; he likes to finish sentences and fill in blanks when I read him stories; he will makes up stories to go along with picture books; his daycare has been drilling him on the names of letters.  I think that might be part of my frustration with teaching this new skill.  His daycare is working hard to teach him the names of the letters, sight recognition of the letters, and even writing some of the letters (in case I haven't bragged before: he can write and spell his name), but his teachers have not been spending much time on teaching the sounds of letters. 

When PB Monster and I lived in Ontario, I spent a lot of time playing phonetic games with him.  Instead of singing him the letters of the alphabet, I'd sing him the sounds of the alphabet.  After we moved, I spent less time playing those games.  Just before Christmas, I realized I'd been slacking and bought a couple Christmas presents to help subtly start reiterating phonics.  And, now that PB Monster has actively decided he wants to start reading, I can explore a new section of the library.