The Chatter: Reading

Yesterday on Facebook I posted as my status update:

"Maia just read me 10 Bobs books (with minimal help). I'm beyond proud and ridiculously tired. That took more patience than I knew I had."

After I posted it, I realized that it might be misleading. Especially since I now know that a reading child is not anything like what I expected.

I thought once Maia was reading, she'd curl up on her bed and independently turn the pages as she immersed herself in stories.

Turns out that it's a lot of inconsistency in the beginning, requiring parental involvement.

Which in turn involves lots of deep breathing.

But yesterday was the first time that Maia asked to read with me.

And the phrase "reading is fun!" actually came out of her mouth.

And she didn't give up or get frustrated.

There was no way in hell that I was going to mess up this opportunity.

So I let her be silly and bit my tongue every time we came to a word she had seen before or wasn't thinking or focused and the result was that she wanted to read all 10 Bob's Books with me.

Maia has had all the reading tools for awhile.

Aleks said it best:

"It's like Maia has purchased a full tool box and has carefully hung up each tool on the wall in her garage, but doesn't quite understand how to use them."

Yesterday was the first time that I've seen her get out those tools and start to use them in the correct way.

It's so exciting.

I tried to get some video of her reading and of course the book I captured is not a great example of Maia's ability to focus.

If anything, it's a better example of how I tried to remain patient with Ruby jumping on my head.

But, it might be interesting to some of you, especially grandmas, papas, gramps, and nanas.

Happy Friday!