Day 1,017 - Ready to Read

Something important happened. That's the only excuse for me missing (checks calendar) 13 days of blogging about stay-at-home dad duties. Right? Right? Right?

Sorry to disappoint but nothing monumental happened. There were a few playdates, a trip to Savannah and Nebraska, a zoo trip(!), the 'Psych' book series, and March Madness. Actually, just blame my lack of posting all on that last one. As everyone knows, once you get out of a habit, it's extremely difficult to get back into the swing of things.

While there is plenty of minutiae to report on, I want to remember one of the biggest things happening right now in our house. Over the past month, Ellie has made steady progress on her reading abilities and I'm proud to report that she is officially a reading machine! Well, reading machine might be overselling it; that would make her a Kindle instead of a human being.  However, that being said, she has definitely taken great strides in her reading abilities over the last month.

A portrait of Ellie. Wait, no, that's a Kindle.

It started simply enough with Bethany and I specifically asking Ellie to identify words here and there in books over the past year. Then, my mom dug into her stash of supplies from her days as a reading teacher and found a lot of sight words for us to work on with her. Her preschool teachers also did the same and before we knew what was happening, Ellie was reading books aloud to us.

Now, I should mention that she's not reading 'War and Peace' or 'Atlas Shrugged'. I haven't even read any of those! Although, for the record, I was supposed to read 'Atlas Shrugged' for an extremely painful class in college for Professor Steve Gilbert. However, it seemed like a much better use of my time to read the chapter summaries on Spark Notes. Spoiler alert: it was, except I've still never read 'Atlas Shrugged'. 

At least I remember what the cover looked like. That counts for something, right?

Obviously, Ellie is reading age appropriate books. Our favorites right now happen to be the 'Ready to Read' series and the 'I Can Read' series. Both have various levels with Ellie currently finding herself on Level 1. The great thing about these books is that we're finding subject matter that Ellie is actually interested in and has previous exposure to. Some of her favorites include stories about 'Paw Patrol' and 'Daniel Tiger's Neighborhood'. Since she knows the characters already, it's making it so much easier for her since names sometimes cause her to struggle.

Ellie's current favorites include the above.

My favorite thing about watching Ellie read is seeing the confidence that she is seemingly building in her abilities day in and day out. While she will inevitably struggle with a word the first time she sees it, it doesn't take her long to figure it out. For the most part, once she successfully sounds out a word once, she has it figured out and will get the word just by looking at it.

While I was a little afraid that Ellie would lose her desire to have me read to her once she learned to read, that fear has not come to pass. She still adores sitting in Bethany's or my lap and being read to. While I know that will eventually end, I'm determined to enjoy those times while they still take place. I can't speak for Bethany though. Joking!

#DaddyWrite