I needed a statistic this week for an article I am writing. I turned to a fascinating book, Creating Lifelong Readers Through Independent Reading, to find it and found the numbers I needed and more. I was searching for the decline in ‘reading for pleasure’ seen over the years. But don’t fear-the story I was writing […]
Read moreIt might have been a bedtime-delaying tactic. But I’ll take it. You see, Katherine and I just spent a good fifteen minutes playing a spontaneous alphabet game. We are in the middle of the latest in our favorite series, Gooney Bird on the Map. During our reading tonight, Gooney Bird and her classmates matched the first […]
Read moreI was talking with a neighbor this morning about the amazing-ness of her two year old twins. Born at 32 weeks, each weighing under four pounds, they show no developmental signs of their early beginnings. When I asked my neighbor why she thought they were doing so remarkably well she said, “Well, we read to […]
Read moreSomething funny is happening in our house. Katherine is beginning to say, “That’s a boring book.” At first I panicked. Initially, I couldn’t figure out what was and what wasn’t. Sometimes they were old favorites and sometimes brand new titles she hadn’t seen before. Sometimes they were based in reality and sometimes they were totally […]
Read moreWith summer approaching and fear of the summer slide settling in, I am getting lots of questions about how to help young readers. Sometimes, I think people are looking for the perfect answer. Some type of magical response that can only come from a specialist. Something that they, as parents are missing. In fact, the […]
Read morePete the Cat strikes again. As frequent blog readers know, I love a good Read Together book. I introduced a client to Pete last week and sent her off with the book for some weekend fun. When I saw her this morning, the child’s smile was enormous. “I read Pete the Cat this weekend.” she […]
Read moreI often save ideas for future blog posts on scraps of paper, in the back of a notebook, or at risk of loosing said idea, in my head. Just the other day, I remembered an idea I had for a post about our local independent children’s bookstore. I go to Books, Bytes and Beyond often […]
Read moreThe spring sports season is getting the best of me. Between travel soccer, recreational softball and kindergarten t-ball, our evenings are busy with practices and our weekends with games. I realized the other day, that our library bag has sat empty for a few weeks for the first time since the girls were born. We […]
Read moreLast week, Caroline took her first standardized test. For four days, her mornings were full of reading and writing passages and multiple choice questions. Fortunately, all the children came out of the testing feeling confident in their performance. Many of them, my daughter included, rather liked the week because it meant no homework. However, Caroline […]
Read moreSometimes I know we, as adults, make things really complicated. On the way to school this morning, Katherine and her two carpools friends were in a super silly mood. The two in front were sharing high fives and making faces at each other when I caught the eye of the one in back row on […]
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