Reading with My Girl!

I have the privilege to read with my neighbor's daughter every Weds. afternoon. It is so fun to have a girl in my life! It gets lonely, being the sole female in my home...sometimes I wonder if I am going nuts or if I am really the only one who can truly multi-task.

Ok, so a few things came out of our reading. She is getting more comfortable with me (we've only done this about a month or so) so her habits before me as a reader are showing up -- by that I mean her parents had said she has trouble sticking with one book, and sure enough, she wanted to be involved in two Katie Kazoo books this week, so I had to do a little redirecting. Instead of telling her that she needed to finish one before the other, I put it to her in two ways: One, which book did she REALLY feel more involved in, and then when she selected one, I said, " Great! I was hoping you'd pick that one...when we left off, they were xyz, and I was so curious what would happen next. I remember the blurb said xyz, so I am wondering how it gets there!"

See what I did? I gave her choice, and then I directed her thinking about the book, but coached it in MY own desire to know...I would have done it with either book, by the way.

Try that the next time your child is saying they want to read something else rather than finishing what they have started.

We read a few chapters and she did something wonderful that I wasn't going to do with her for a while...but...she's got the desire now, we will jump on it!

She brought post its. At the end of the chapter, we used one to write a sentence or two about what had happened in that reading time. Next time she goes to read, I told her to get "her mind up to speed" and reread the post it to remind herself of what just happened so she is ready to read on.

She also used post its (GOSH I WISH I HAD INVENTED THEM) to write down words and their meanings when we read the Easter Fancy Nancy book...which she loves for all things glamorous!

Finally, she had brought Carl's Christmas...which is a funny thing in March, I know, but it was cool what she and I did. It is basically a wordless book. There is an introductory page where the parents speak to Carl, the dog, and then the rest of the book is beautiful illustrations. She "told me the story" as we went through the pages. This is a great thing to do with kids of all ages, and will especially help them in their writing to construct a story. Many times in writing we have kids draw the sketches first and then write as they are developing as writers.

So it gave me the opportunity to point out details to her to add into her elaboration of the story. It also gave me a chance to ask questions. She got to be the "author" in a way, so we had time to talk about how she wanted the story to sound, and why she chose the words she did instead of others...this will lead me into some author's purpose with her next week.

Tomorrow, if baseball doesn't consume my whole day, I will try and fill you in on some good ways to discuss author's purpose.

Can you believe she's only a Kindergartener, by the way????!!!
Yep, it is possible for even the youngest readers to do really in depth thinking!