Sunday 27 January 2013

Reading presence

It's a haphazard journey; I had initially planned we'd spend 10 or so minutes each day on "Learn to Read" lessons, then later in the day spend some time reading books together.

What was I thinking, of course it ain't happening; instead Rye is showing me just how much he is learning through life and play. He is also demonstrating retention.

We read nearly every day, Rye's favourite book is "how big is a million", and he can nearly read it all himself. Friday, I was curious, would Rye be able to read the Bob books. It's been a while, and yes he breezed through the first two books, and did incredibly well with the third, so well he's ready to progress to the fourth book.


Great to see him reading on his own too, and reading well enough to engage in the story and ask questions. Reading hour has been re-instigated with a bit of fine tuning. We spend about twenty to thirty minutes reading together,talking about books, or listening to audio books, then Rye spends half hour looking at books on his own.

It's a useful daily tool that pulls me from the myriad of mundane and reminds me to be fully present with my child.

It's also a time that allows me to widen his horizons a bit, introduce him to the wonderful pockets of information contained in encyclopaedias, look at history books, science books. It's a time that sparks questions and interesting conversations.

Rye is a child who has chronic verbal diahorrea, every thought is vocalised, and often I find myself switching off from the rambling scrambles of ideas and occurrences, making vague sounds of agreement to satisfy his need for a listening ear, thus avoiding the increase in volume as he repeats the same thought over an over until acknowledgement (and need for a large alcoholic beverage) is given.

Reading hour serves the purpose of giving Rye my full attention, but also helping to focus his mind a little so we have conversations that aren't bewildering, and leaving me feeling exasperated. Bed time I reserve for listening to his, well, brain farts; those random gusts of thoughts that you have no idea where they come from.

I have also reintroduced a reading at meal times, something short, like a poem and then talk about it; Rye's brain farts become welcomed and it's fascinating to see the leaps and connections he makes. And again becomes a time of being present, reading presence, I love how my son's journey is so multifaceted, and how it's also my journey as a mother.





















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2 comments:

Wyld Jane.. said...

great post xx

Unknown said...

Lovely to catch up with your blog and a really interesting post x x