'Reading Journey' book club

The goal: 

As you probably know, children learn basic skills at an early age. All children learn differently and at different pace. Some children may be able to pick up some skills better than the others, and some children may take longer to learn those same skills. In this club, parents will learn what they need to do in order to help their child begin to read. Students might have problems reading because they lack specific skills necessary for proficient reading. Besides schools/teachers, we as parents also have our part to help the kids through their reading journey. Putting a few simple strategies into action will make a significant difference in helping children develop into good readers and writers. Books give vision, intellect, and information which make life choices easier. What’s better goal for a book club than help the young readers to recognize the letters, the sounds and start reading! In this club we are inculcating passion for reading. We also learn strategies for making reading fun and interactive. Join the club and take your part in this adventurous journey with your child to the world of reading.

First session:

Today is April 26, 2013. It’s the first day of book club. The club name is Reading Jourey. It was long time that I was dreaming to have my own book club to talk and share reading experience with moms who has newborns, toddlers and preschoolers. Anna and I got started from morning to decorate the walls with big colorful foamy Alphabet letters. She is a good helper and she is excited about the club.  We brought downstairs some of her picture books and easy reader books. And now it’s time for fun. All the new readers are babies today! We started on time at 3 pm and finished before 4 pm. I introduced myself and told mothers about Anna’s and my reading journey since she was newborn.  Then it was Anna’s turn to point the letters and make their sounds. I picked up colorful foamy letter "O" and gave to little Jessie to touch the letter and feel the roundness. Then Kahlan’s mom and I showed her a beautiful book with bold colors while Jessie’s mom was reading Jessie’s favorite Dr. Seuss’ book. By the way, she was listening quietly. Little Kahlan seemed tired because she is only 4 months. Her eyes seemed too curious to explore something else. While everybody was busy with reading I shared some age-appropriate techniques that worked for me and tried to practice them during the session:

1. Read aloud for the baby for 15 minutes every day.

2. Have the big colorful foamy alphabet. It’s easy to point to this big letters and babies love bid bold colored things.  

3. Let the baby touch the letters to feel the shapes of the letters.

4. Sing the alphabet song to the baby.

5. Read a word like “cat” while pointing to the cat’s picture in the book.

6. Make reading more fun by interacting, adding sounds. 

Prologue

Anna’s and my own reading journey both go back to days when she was newborn baby. I was reading to her every day. I always loved books and reading, although that love started quite late, when I turned 13. I wish I had been introduced to books earlier in my life. However during my childhood years there were few children’s books in Iran. It was the time when Iran was fighting bloody war with Iraq. War lasted 8 years and those years were practically void of cultural events I could attend and only books available to me were school textbooks.

I was still in the middle school when one of my classmates brought a book to me. It was one of Leo Tolstoy’s masterpieces, “Anna Karenina.” I was surprised to finish reading it in just few days. It was my first experience and I fell in in love with books. It was such an exciting time! Honestly, I even started getting better grades in school after that. I found my favorite writers with whom I could share my thoughts and feelings. I was still teenage but I loved to read the world’s big writers: Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Mark Twain, Anatole France, Alexander Dumas, John Steinbeck, Ernest Hemingway and many more…

But subconsciously there was still something missing. I found it when Anna (my baby girl) was born. It turned out I was missing children’s literature that I did not have access to in my childhood. True, I was reading great literature in my teenage years, but it was not the same as reading age-appropriate literature as one grows up.  It is very important to read children’s books during childhood because it helps to develop child’s imagination. Since I started reading for my child I was thrilled to read every single children’s book I could get hold of.  I believe in some way, I was trying to fill the gap in my own education. Most of the time, we ended our shopping in a book store, where Anna and I were hanging around children’s section for very long.   Reading children books was—and still is—a delightful and funny activity.

After a while we realized that Anna has the same passion for books and we can help her to read all by herself. Besides daily reading activities, we were playing with letters, singing songs, making rhymes, touching letters in her foamy alphabet carpet to feed her tactile sense. Anna started to recognize all 26 letters when she was only 13 months. We were very enthusiastic that our method seemed to work. Finally she started reading a whole book all by herself when she was 3 years and 4 months. I will never forget the happy moment when my husband told me that Anna read him Dr. Seuss’ The Lorax at the story time!