lambscapearchitect: reading

Around Thanksgiving we were down at the coffeehouse and Eloise grabbed a book from the shelf. She opened it up and read it aloud to us. Mike and I looked at each other in disbelief and then, as she kept reading, we became nerdily giddy with excitement. It seemed like something just clicked and all of the sudden, she was a reader.

Eloise was as excited as we were about this new skill. She wanted to read everything: street signs, banners, grocery store ads, food packaging, that one Christmas list that I had unfortunately left out on the counter and, of course, lots and lots of books.

As luck would have it, we have come across a couple events at our beloved library that seem as though they were tailor made for Eloise and her newfound love of reading.

The first program is called Book Buddies and invites children to gather, sing, listen to a story and then pair up with a Northwestern college student to choose from a bevy of specially selected books and do some one on one reading. After about 30 minutes of reading with their Buddies they regroup for a craft and goodbyes. The college students are perfect for reading with kids this age. They are engaged, interested, funny, and not nearly as boring as mom and dad.

The other library program we discovered is called Tail Waggin' Tutors. Children of all ages sign up to come and read to therapy dogs once a week. I thought Eloise was going to lose her mind when I told her we were going to do this. You know how she is about dogs. At the first session, which was just supposed to be a 'meet and greet' with the dogs, she read a book to every single one and learned all of their names. For the next six weeks, she will visit the therapy dogs at the library for her shift and read to them for 20 minutes and then have 10 minutes of 'cuddle time'. The dogs love having the kids read to them, it calms them down and they are wonderful listeners. It is a great opportunity for kids to practice their reading and super fun for a dog-sick girl like mine.

I am very much enjoying seeing how proud she is of herself. She is obsessed with "I Can Read" books and was the recipient of about 50 of them thanks to her book loving Aunt Vicki. She is having fun showing off her reading to all members of the family but especially loves reading a bedtime story, or two, or twelve to Harriet. She is now working her way, ever so diligently and excitedly, through both of their overstuffed bookshelves, one story at a time.