Reading

Aaron starting reading just shy of turning 3.  He already knew all his letters and their sounds.  In fact, he could tell you what letter a word started with.  So Kim, who takes him and Audrey to the library at least once a month, picked up the Bob Books, Set 1: Beginning Readers.

He didn't get a chance to look at the books with Kim, so after his nap that day, I pulled out the first one.  He sat with me and sounded out the words!  I was so excited.  He read the whole thing on his own.  Granted, it is very simple: Mat sat.  Sam sat. Etc..  But it was his first attempt and I was thrilled.

He read the second book in the series too, then needed some help with the third.  Each book is progressively harder.  As with most of his library books, he lost interest within a week or two.  And he didn't really try to read other books.  We didn't push it.  He's only 3 and doesn't need to read, but since we are always reading newspapers, magazines and books, and he seemed ready to start reading, we were happy to encourage him.

Last night, when we were reading the board book version of Ten Apples Up On Top (which is abridged), Aaron asked Thom to stop reading at one point so he could try reading that page.  He did that for two pages and that was enough for him.  Then tonight, he pulled out the hardcover, full version of Ten Apples Up On Top.  This time, about 5 pages in, he repeatedly asked Thom "Stop reading please" so that he could try to read about every other page.  After sounding out the words, he'd ask Thom to read the words, so each page he read was being read twice.  This was taking a long time and Audrey was on my lap and getting fussy, but we didn't want to discourage him.  I can picture him reading to Audrey within a year.  I ended up taking Audrey to bed before the end of story time.  If he wants to start reading his own bedtime stories, we may have to start our bedtime routine a lot earlier.