Hopping Through the Pages

We read backwards.  We skip from Page 1 to Page 14, back to 3.  Upside down.  In the bathtub.  Sometimes the book becomes a monster and “chomps”.  With a quick close of the cover, the book puffs air in faces.  (Guaranteed giggle-maker)    

My favorite is snuggling together on the brown, leather couch arms encircling my little boy.

Daddy goes on sidebars when he reads to G.  Maybe the first page truly comes from the book in hand, and then they take off on some story tangent from outer space. 

Books are fun. 

Do pages get ripped and chewed?  --Oh yes.   Some of our beloved books look like half-eaten BLT’s.  I swear Sandra Boynton board books construct their pages with bacon-flavored goodness.

We keep most G books at eye level on the big book shelf.  We slip the “special” keep-me-nice books, up real high.  We don’t read every night, but often G grabs a book, walks over, and hands it to me as if to say “Hey, read this one to me.  I’ll take off and play across the room, but I’m still listening momma.”

Author Jill Stamm in her book Bright from the Start says, “The sheer amount of words spoken to a child from birth to three has a direct impact on later testable IQ.” 

Stamm goes on to write: “ Just as with being talked to, being read to helps “tune” individual bundles of neurons in a critical part of the growing brain, which will make your child better able to learn to speak and one day read himself.”  

Basically this book says read, and read often.  Easy enough.

Children's literacy advocate, Jen Robinson, posts a Ten Tips for Growing Bookworms on her blog.  I really like her #10.

I remember the first time I saw my little guy reach for a book.  Pick it up. Open. 

“BA BA… BA BA BA”, his sweet 6-month-old mouth yelps.  Just like momma reads out loud. This is the moment I knew all my early reading times, where G blank stared at me (Momma, why are you reading those funny words to me?) were totally worth it. 

Weeks later:   In Babies R Us, Grandma carting G through the baby-gate aisle, G excitedly points at the large Australian shepherd displayed on the packaging.  His first communication of knowing what a dog is. With help from many renditions of Doggies by Boynton, we know a doggie barks.  We know 10 different ways a doggie barks.  And at the end of the book, we know what all those doggies are barking at…. a cat!  (Sorry, plot spoiler)

Tonight after bath time, I might just grab one of those delicious Boynton books.. maybe Moo Baa La La La.  Those three pigs make this grown-up smile.

What books are you reading tonight in your home?

Lauren