I've Forgotten How Much Fun It Is

At the start of summer 2006, I started teaching toothsome #2 to read. Her pre-school teacher said she was more than ready and because she watched me practice letter sounds with toothsome #1, she learned them at the same time. The school district here uses a system called, "Academic Success for All Learners" and so I ordered on-line, the first set of books. I really like this system, particularly after seeing how fast toothsome #1 learned to read after using them in Kindergarten.

Anyway, all summer long, she read to me daily out of these books and we were super diligent about reading them until toothsome #4 was born in October. We really haven't read together since and not a day goes by without me feeling guilty about it.

So, today was the day to start again. We spent about 20 minutes together reading and I had forgotten how much fun we have together doing it. At the bottom of each page in the book there is either a comprehension question or a smiley face that says, "Praise!" to remind me to praise my child. Whenever we get to a "Praise!" toothsome #2 hollers loudly, "Praise, praise, praise, praise!" We laughed and giggled the whole time and she's learning to read. It reminded me that it is moments like these that create happy growing up memories for my children. I need to continue to create moments like these. They are priceless.