Budding Reading Interests

Since we welcomed two Ethiopian children into our family five months ago, I have been befuddled and unsure of how to get them interested in books. Neither of them can read yet, and our ESL teacher has actually strongly encouraged me not to do formal reading instruction (like phonics) with them till next fall.

Now that they're understanding English better and better each day, I have seen their interest in books start to bud. This is very encouraging to me!

We've been doing bedtime reading since they first came home (I remember my son asking me to read him a grocery store flyer one night when he still didn't understand much English). I also read to them at the lunch table on the weekends from time to time. And I try to read in front of them as much as possible, but there's not much opportunity for that (they keep me hopping).

We visit the library pretty regularly, and I'm excited for us all to participate in the summer reading program. Both my older kids recently got their own library cards and were pretty excited about that. Although, they are still more enthusiastic about checking out movies than they are about checking out the books.

I found a copy of Diary of a Wimpy Kid at a yard sale and starting reading that aloud to them recently. They are enjoying that, even laughing aloud at it. I just added the movie to our Netflix queue so we can watch it when we finish the book.

We had family come visit last week and my niece brought along a Calvin and Hobbes book. Both kids really liked that. My son especially liked it, even asking me to read it to him when he came home from school one day! (I don't ever get reading requests except at bedtime!) So now we need to go find some Calvin and Hobbes at the library... or maybe the Easter Bunny will deliver some.