When I was 8 years old, my parents moved our family to South America. I remember, distinctly, reading All Creatures Great and Small on the plane on the way down. So I was reading a many hundred page book with complex vocabulary at the age of 8.
I am not trying to brag. I just learned to read easily.
So far, none of our children have had major issues with reading. Thankfully.
One thing I learned with Isaac, in particular, was that the books I loved as a child were not necessarily the ones he liked. He's a boy, and I realized (with some difficulty) that his interests were allowed to be very different from mine. Our eldest girls loved the Laura Ingalls Wilder books and other books with female protagonists but Isaac, and then Joseph, were less enthralled with some books.
With the older boys, I started bringing home lots of graphic books and novels when they were fluent but young readers. They liked being able to look at pictures while also reading lots of prose.
As the children have gotten older, I've worked hard to provide books of interest. Now, I definitely don't believe that "any book is a good book". I've nixed many a book because it has horrendous themes. But, I've also realized that weird books can be good books.
Like the Horrible Science, and Horrible History, and Horrible Geography, and Murderous Math books, all non fiction books with "horrible" stuff left in. It is secular but fun, and the kids love reading them on their own.
No, its not Les Miserables but that's Ok, even though I'm a determined reader, I rarely like the classics.
I want my kids to enjoy reading and be fluent readers, but I'm fine if they enjoy books I don't so long as they aren't ungodly.
I'm thankful for Amazon and online groups with great ideas of what to get our kids so they can enjoy reading.
No comments:
Post a Comment