Reading Update

Well, it's been about eight months since I started reading chapter books out loud to Elsa each night at bedtime, and we've both really enjoyed this routine. As you can see from the list in the right-hand column of this blog, we've been able to rack up quite a few titles, just a few pages at a time. I like revisiting all these childhood classics, and I like that we curl up in bed and cuddle together while we read that night's chapter.

Elsa seems to genuinely enjoy our reading as well. Every night almost without fail, she asks "Are we going to read tonight?" And while I'm still not entirely sure how much she understands of what we read, there's no question she has improved dramatically on that front. I'm gauging that by the questions she asks, which have gotten far more sophisticated over the course of these eight months.

For example, I'll never forget the time early on when we were reading "Little House in the Big Woods." If you haven't read the Little House books or you don't remember, the first two in particular tend to go into great detail about how things were built or tasks were performed back then. These passages are by far (in my opinion) the most boring parts of the Little House books, and I think Elsa and I enjoyed the third book in the series, "On the Banks of Plum Creek," the most so far, because it was heavier on plot and lighter on description. But anyway, I was reading about a threshing machine that Pa rented to harvest some crops. The threshing machine was brought to the farm via horse-and-wagon, by some men who owned the machine and operated it. Throughout the description of the machine, there was a lot of, "The men did turned the wheel," and "The men cranked the lever", etc.—"the men" being these two guys who operated it. After several long paragraphs of this, I was getting bored and had no real clear picture myself of how this thing operated, so I was sure Elsa wasn't getting much out of it. But she absolutely confirmed that when she suddenly asked: "Mommy, what's a 'men'?"

She didn't ask about the levers or the cranks or the spigots or whatever was on this contraption—that was so beyond her, she didn't even bother to question it. It was "men" that she didn't understand! (Which I guess makes sense. How many times do you say "men" instead of "guys"? And even if she knew what "man" meant, I wouldn't expect her to know that "men" is the plural of it.) Up to that point, I figured Elsa wasn't comprehending much of what we read. But this hammered home for me that she probably wasn't really comprehending any of it. She might enjoy our reading time, but I think her enjoyment came from hearing the words, looking at the pictures, and having some quality time with me. Not that there was anything wrong with that–if nothing else, she was learning to like books and developing her attention span. And if she liked it, it didn't really matter why!

But since then, I think she's started to get a lot more out of the books we're reading. She's asking more questions about characters' motivations ("Why doesn't Ralph want to live at the hotel anymore?" or "Why won't Ryan give Ralph the motorcycle?") versus obvious questions ("Why does Ralph like peanut butter and jelly?" or "Why did Ralph fall into the wastebasket?"). She also asks way better vocabulary questions than "What's a 'men'?" Now it's: "What does 'murmur' mean?" or "What does 'chuckle' mean?" or "What does 'mischievous' mean?" She's also been interested in why certain words are italicized in a text, which I think shows that she's really looking at the pages, even when there aren't any pictures on them. (I did my best to explain italics and tell her when I've just read an italicized word or phrase.)

So we're definitely continuing our reading, and it's only getting more fun as Elsa gains more comprehension. I think I'm going to be a little disappointed when she starts reading these books on her own! As far as reading material, I think we're done with the Little House books for now. The next one is "On the Shores of Silver Lake," which begins with the one-two punch of Mary going blind and their faithful dog Jack dying. So I think we'll save the rest of that series for when Elsa is more able to deal with things like that. We're now finishing up the last of the three "Mouse and the Motorcycle" books (which she has enjoyed, although I think there's a lot of older-kid stuff in there that is beyond her understanding, like summer camp and school projects).

After we complete the final Ralph book, we're going to start on the "Magic Tree House" series. I'm not familiar with this series, but it was recommended for Elsa's age group, and it sounds interesting. It's about a pair of kids who find a magic tree house that takes them to the location and time period of whatever book they read in the tree house. There's like 50 very short books in the series, so I think it'll keep us busy for a while! We're also going to try "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory," which I'm sure she'll love due to the candy focus, and "The Cricket in Times Square," which I only vaguely remember reading as a kid.

My little girl is turning into such a big kid! I love her so much! (See Elsa—I'm using italics to emphasize something!)