Reading Material

Owen has been learning to read.  He has been interested in letters and sounds since he was fairly little and has been motivated just by the “thrill” of reading all on his own. 

One day in July, Owen saw an advertisement for Build-a-Bear and wanted to know when I could take him.  On a whim I offered to go if he finished 100 reading “lessons.”  He had completed about 50 in a reading book that we have - at a rate of a two or three lessons a week.

Owen was instantly hooked onto the idea, and wanted to begin right away.  We made a chart with 100 little squares that he could color in for each lesson he read.  When I wrote “Build-a-Bear” on the paper, Owen asked if he could get Lego instead.  This is what he had in mind.  I agreed.

Owen began asking me to listen to him read several times a day.  It quickly became apparent that the book I had would be too advanced to read at a fast rate since the ending lessons were at a 2nd grade level.  

We started reading basic phonics readers – “the cat is on the mat” type of thing.  One that Owen got for his birthday and another series that Eric’s aunt had given Owen.  Owen’s favorite was about “a duck stuck on a truck with junk – so he stunk.”  Apparently five-year-olds can hardly breath from laughing so hard when they read sentences like that…

The other day, I went to the library because Owen has memorized all of the reading books that we have. (and Jack is beginning to memorize them too!  He loves to listen to Owen’s reading and will point to words and say “aaaaa-mmmmm-zzzzzzzzz that says Cracker!”)

While at the library, I came across some great books, and grabbed several in the series to take home.  I also saw another series with only one word on each page.  These are really too easy for Owen, but thought he might feel confident and have fun reading them to Jack. I grabbed a few from that series too.

While reading one of the books to Jack, Owen seemed stuck on a page.  Both he and Jack were staring at it with furrowed eyebrows.  I leaned over to see this page.

I thought they were pretty funny, though I have a hard time imagining an illustrator being told that these were the pictures to be drawn for a children’s reading series.

Owen and Jack didn’t quite know what to think about the book.  I noticed that it isn’t one that is being re-read a million times.