Hi all, if you have an early reader who is capable of reading books, I have a question: does your little reader actually pick up books and read them? Does he or she read them to you, or alone, silently or out loud? I’m very curious in your answer, to inform a section of my essay.
Every day, my little boy has a book in hand and is thumbing through it by himself. He does not do this very much these days, but in the not-so-distant past he was doing it quite a bit. He tends to do this in the mornings, I’ve noticed. He frequently totes around a book I’ve recently finished reading to him. (We just finished The Jungle Book, a simplified version, last night. He absolutely loved it and has asked for the original.) He still occasionally picks up a book and reads some to his mother (recently was reading a little from a Heinlein book of mine that he found), but rarely to me. For me he’ll occasionally read bits and pieces as I’m reading to him (for example, he reads all of Jack’s notes from the Magic Tree House books), and a couple of times he has sort of grabbed the book from me and started reading from it himself–often silently. Lately, that’s been a little “naughty” thing he’s been doing–at mealtimes, I’m taking a bite, and he grabs the book and reads ahead and then gets a sly look on his face. Then he’ll ask a question about what he’s just read.
Unfortunately, one thing he does not do is sit down and read a book from beginning to end. Well, no, he does do that, but probably only a half-dozen times in the last year.
So…what do your little readers do with their books when you aren’t reading to them?
I’ve been meaning to reply to this thread as soon as I saw it but somehow kept getting sidetracked.
My soon-to-be 2 year old likes to read with me (she reads while I point out the words) and also likes to read alone. In the morning after waking up, the first thing she reaches for are the books that I always keep at our bedside. This is the time when she would most often read aloud to herself because I am usually still half-asleep and trying to get a few more winks in. Ever since we got into the habit of pointing out the words as we read aloud (which I started after reading one of your posts), she would point out the words with her index finger even when reading out loud to herself. She would go through 4-5 short books by herself (Ladybird Read-It-Yourself level 1, homemade mini-books, a couple of Chinese books) before tiring of it and demanding that I wake up and play with her. She reads the sentences fairly quickly even with the pointing method. She tends to skip a few words here and there (or sometimes a few pages) when she’s reading aloud to herself; but overall, she’s pretty good about going through the whole book.
In the afternoon after I get home from work and in the evening before bed, these are the times when I can read with her and we go through the longer and higher level books since her attention span is better when I am reading with her. We also tend to read more Chinese books when I’m with her since she is a less independent reader in Chinese than English. Current English favorites are poetry books for children, Vincent van Gogh’s art book for kids, level 2 Ladybird books, and The Adventures of Frog and Toad. She is able to read most of the words and often surprises me with her level of comprehension.
Shes reads out loud to herself about 50% of the time and we read together about 50% of the time. A lot of times, she would also read out loud to her dolls. She would arrange them around her on the floor like she’s the daycare teacher and then start reading aloud from her books. Rarely, she would thumb through some of her books just looking at the words and/or pictures silently. She would also read out random things that she sees. For example, recently I had her on my lap while I was doing some work and I noticed that she was staring intently at the page I had open in front of me. I guess she was looking for words that she was familiar with because, suddenly, she just started pointing out random words that she knew and read them out loud - “x-ray, body, knee, patella…” (I was reading a medical journal.) lol
Anyway, hope this helps and I can’t wait to read your essay!
DadDude, My dd is just starting to read on her own a little bit. So at 30 months I would say that she is reading very short simple books (1-3 words per page, less than 10 pages) on her own. She will pick them up by herself and read them about 50% aloud and 50% to herself. I would say that would be about 10-15% of her reading. The other 85-90% of the reading is with an adult (mostly me, her Mom). When she is reading with me, she will read maybe 20-25% of the books aloud, if I use my finger to help her follow the sentences. These books are about a Level 1 reader (about 1-3 sentences per page, 5-8 words per sentence, again less than 10-12 pages long). We might take turns, she reads a sentence or a page and then I read , or she reads a book and then I read a book. The rest of the reading is still me reading more complex books, such as Level 2 or 3 readers and small chapter books. However, I would say that 99% of reading is initiated by my dd, she is the one bringing books to me, or asking me to sit and read with her.
I hope that information helps and I look forward to your essay.
My little boy reads spontanteously things he sees in everyday life (i.e. cereal boxes), he reads to me out of short chapter books, like frog and toad for about 30 minutes a day, though I do not think he would do this unprompted. He then “reads” to himself before bed for about 30 minutes. At his time he does some silent reading, some reading aloud and some flipping through books and looking at pictures. It is pretty random and not directed. It only time he really picks up a book to read spontaneously is when he wants to read to his little brother and then he usually only gets a few pages in before little brother tries to rip the book out of his hands, turn the page, crawls away, etc…
Hi,
My 17 old months baby is always walking with some book in his hands around the house. He uses his finger to point to a word and say at loud it if he knows how. Is he reading books from cover to cover? Some yes, some no. Most of the time he brings the book to me, sit on my laps and opens the book and start to read. If he has a trouble with some word he says “This!” that means I need to read that to him. I see him many times during the day looking through different books and reading at loud and using finger.
Many times he grabs adult books with no picture at all. He opens them and he is looking for words he knows. He reads bigger titles, magazines advertisings etc.
He loves books! That’s for sure
I’m glad that other kids are doing similar things, that means we as a parents are doing great job!!!
linzy have you tried to give him ‘baby’ or more childish books like hard cover ‘Good night moon’ or ‘Brown bear what do you see’ ? Maybe they ar too easy for him but there will be no risk of ripping his book and he will get his little brother’s attention and feel very good.
Keep on the nice work with your kids.
My kids have all been different. The girls would sometimes read books cover to cover in one sitting, but always starting at the beginning. My boy sometimes starts in the middle, with a section (or page) he praticularly likes. Not sure if it’s the picture or the ‘action’ (such as it is). I have noticed my boy doesn’t spend as much uninterrupted time reading. The girls could sit for 15-25 minutes by themselves reading when they were toddlers. The boy… maybe 5 or 10. He has more physical energy, doesn’t like sitting still (does his best work on his feet!, which is fine by us), maybe a shorter attention span when left on his own. All our kids have enjoyed the experience of reading together at bedtime. It accomplishes so much in terms of relationship and bonding, not to mention fostering a love of books.
Well, My daughter prefers to be read I think…because most of the time she asks “books books”. But whenever she wants to have a “me time” ,she goes to her bedroom(sometimes my bedroom) gets books out of the bookshelf sits and read quietly…whenever she does this I am busy doing something else and go check on her very quietly to see her…she can go to 30 or so books at a time… when she is done she puts them back.SHE DOESN’T DO THIS VERY OFTEN,MAYBE TWICE A WEEK.
On weekends when she gets up,she cames to our bed and asks for books.(I am still sleepy) so I put some books in our bed and ask her to read them for us…sometimes she does or sometimes she refuses saying no thank you…I want mommy or daddy to read them. I noticed that she reads them loud for us to hear her.
My 30 month old son has just started reading a couple of words off the LR story page. It’s very exciting! In terms of books I have to pause him from whatever he was doing sit him on my lap and read to him pointing the words with my finger. He’s really into cartoons nowdays:-(
I can update my own entry with what I hope will be a regular occurrence: after dinner (and too much educational playing on the iPad lately) I decided to go to the chair and read to myself. The kid came up to me and started bothering me, and so I told him to get a book of his own and he could read to himself. So we sat there, together on the same “reading chair,” for 20 minutes or something like that, not very long, and he read the first 6-7 chapters of Magic Tree House #3 (“Pirates Past Noon”). I don’t know how much he was getting, but he seemed to be reading each page carefully (although very quickly–possibly more quickly than I could read them to myself–but this is consistent with how he has read silently to himself before). Also, during dinner, he picked up a couple of Berenstain Bears books and again read every page of both, quickly. I offered to read one, and he said he’d rather read it himself. Again, this is not at all a regular occurrence, so I’m happy about this.
Any more answers? This has been very useful and indeed enlightening to me. I didn’t know that so many toddlers & preschoolers were avidly reading to themselves and to their mommies.
My almost 3 year old has been able to read for almost a year, but only likes books to be read to her. I can sometimes get her to read a word here and there, or a sentence here and there in a book, but rarely. She prefers to read if I write on paper, the computer, or write sentences with word cards laid out on the floor, or other ways to trick her into reading. Oh, also if I get a new book and say ‘this is a book for kids to read themselves!’ Othewise, books are for Mommy and Daddy to read to her. Sigh.
At age 3, that’s pretty much where we were, too. Don’t lose heart.
This evening, out of the blue, my little boy decided to skip telling me a story, as he often does, and didn’t want me to read to him; instead, he just launched into reading to me the 63-page Usborne version of Beowulf, cover to cover. He had read it himself silently earlier in the day. It might be because I video’d him reading a bit of the book, and he then looked at himself. He’s seen the videos of himself reading before, and never had this effect.
I don’t mean to brag or anything, but I am very proud. He read as quickly and fluently as most people would, with excellent pronunciation, actually looked up the pronunciation of “Leofric” (?) from the list-of-characters page (and subsequently used the correct pronunciation that he learned), used different voices and generally interpreted the text. I could understand almost everything he read without actually looking over his shoulder (which he didn’t let me do). Ordinarily, I would have just fallen asleep in this sort of situation, and I was about to drift off in the beginning, but he was reading with total conviction, so he kept me awake. I was very impressed by his pronunciation. I might have corrected him maybe 2-3 times, and he read with correct pronunciation a number of rather advanced words that I didn’t think he would know. Once I was explaining the meaning of a word (as I do) and he said, “OK Papa, that’s enough.” He wanted to keep reading. lol He’s read more books cover-to-cover in the last month than he read in the entire previous year. I think he’s finally becoming an independently-motivated reader…
Now he is asking for another version of the book. We put a few in the Amazon basket but then thought better of it–we’ll just check out what’s available at the library. He’s sleeping with his copy of the book under his arm, like a teddy bear–teddy book?
BTW I’ll be “going public” soon with the essay & announcements, so I’ve removed all the videos of my son from public view. I’ll be uploading a compilation video under my real name within a week or two.
DadDude, please can you give me an idea of what is an Usboune book. I saw some at amazon but do not know if you refer to that one. I di not found Beowulf.
Please don’t forget to tell us where we can access your essay and maybe watch your kids videos. We will be looking for that.
Send me a private MSG and I will send you a review copy. I’ve been soliciting comments, which have helped a lot.
Usborne (so spelled–I had it wrong earlier) is a book publisher. I think they have only one edition of Beowulf. It is a 63-page reader for kids. I am sure there is nothing special about this book–my boy just happens to have been fixated on it today. Usborne makes a lot of great books.
Ever since we got into the habit of pointing out the words as we read aloud (which I started after reading one of your posts), she would point out the words with her index finger even when reading out loud to herself. She would go through 4-5 short books by herself (Ladybird Read-It-Yourself level 1, homemade mini-books, a couple of Chinese books) before tiring of it and demanding that I wake up and play with her. She reads the sentences fairly quickly even with the pointing method. She tends to skip a few words here and there (or sometimes a few pages) when she’s reading aloud to herself; but overall, she’s pretty good about going through the whole book.