Reading in Our House During 2007

Our family is a ‘reading family’. Not a day would go by without seeing various members reading throughout the day and everyone curls up in bed with a book at night. Books spill out the book shelves and are stacked in various piles throughout the house. Boxes are constantly being carried back and forth between our house and the shipping container in our yard where more books are stored.

Books are the basis of our education, they transport us to other lands, other times, new ideas. They impact on our speech, our thoughts, they are simply part of us.

Reflecting back over 2007 I notice a change in our reading patterns, our Family Read Alouds of Chapter Books were reduced in quantity as evidenced here:

* Sadako and the Thousand Paper Cranes by Eleanor Coerr
* The Silver Sword by Ian Serailler
* Milly-Molly-Mandy by Joyce Lankster Brisley
* Misty of Chincoteague by Marguerite Henry
* More of Milly-Molly- Mandy by Joyce Lankester Brisley
* Farmer Boy by Laura Ingalls Wilder

Thinking on this I can see the reason is that many, many more picture books were read and I was busy focusing on listening to Michaelangelo and Princess reading. Much of my time was spent with Dr Suess, DK Readers and other easier reading material. This time has paid off however, just in the last week both children have simply leapt ahead in their ability and are quickly becoming very confident readers:):)

In the meantime I am very grateful that last year (2007) I encouraged the children to leave their books in piles which I then collected at the conclusion of the week and noted down. Looking over their lists I feel reassured they didn’t, well most of them didn’t miss out on quality literature.

We were very proud of Einstein’s (10yrs) achievement of reading The Lord of the Rings Trilogy and many other titles. Carpenter (12 yrs) is a little more of a challenge he loves the LOTR which he read for the first time a couple of years ago, this is his favourite genre and it is hard to find books to interest him but this year we discovered Brian Flanagan’s Ranger’s Apprentice series and he was thrilled. He did manage to enjoy some other books as well. Koala (14 yrs) never needs encouragement to read, her problem is reading too much. This year I think she beat any previous reading, I have to say I am very pleased with the quality she has undertaken this year she has tackled some meatier authors such as Jane Austen and GA Henty and others.

Well done children:)