Riley "Reads"

I am a memorizer. That's how I learned. I'd memorize for tests and forget it all. Terrible. Really terrible. Not the way I want my kids to learn. I still have a horrible long-term memory when it comes to books, movies, etc...

Except when learning to read. It's one of the early steps of reading. Listen to someone read to you, remember what they say, and try it out yourself.

Ri does this a little bit with me. But- often times she'll open a book and just go to town. I really have no idea what she's reading half of the time. She'll mix up real words and made up words and inflect her voice up and down and hold the book like she's the teacher. It cracks me up. The best part about her 'reading' is she really feels like she is reading a book.

She wants so badly to read. So badly to be like her big brother and be able to really read. She's trying.

So a few nights ago I told Jack to take some of the books out of his room that he no longer reads and put them on his sister's bookshelves. One of the books he brought to her was "Brown Bear Brown Bear What Do You See?" by Eric Carle. She saw the book and was super excited. It seems they've been reading this book at school. She promptly picked the book up and read it. It has a pretty clear pattern so it's not a difficult book to memorize but man- she "read" that book like a rock star.

There were no made up words, no silliness- just reading. I was thrilled for her and so proud.

She brought her copy to school this morning and her teacher asked her if she wanted to 'read' it to the class. Her eyes bugged out of her head. I am not sure if she's confident enough to do that (hence another reason for TK next year). We'll see when I pick her up.

Here's a video of her reading the book the other night....

Until next time...