A Passion for Reading

Notwithstanding contrary views on early reading in children, I have personally seen the positive effects of reading early in my children, Isabelle and Ilysse. Isabelle started reading at 3 1/2. I also started Ilysee on the same track at the same age. I do not attribute their reading readiness to a gifted mind but to a set of books my Aunt Sally gave me, the Phonics Ready Readers by Scholastic. This comes in 6 boxes with 12 short books each. The books are arranged according to the complexity of words and sentences and are short and interesting enough to keep a child's attention.

I only devote ten minutes a day for this activity. I would usually bring one or two books in the car for Isabelle and Ilysse to practice and read while on our way to school. While Isabelle has finished the set before she turned 4, it is Ilysse' turn to finish the set of 72 books. We are halfway done and I can say she is enjoying every minute of it. She gets the thrill when she gets to read books having simple stories and would brag to Isabelle that she can now read.

Isabelle is turning 6 in December and since she started reading at 3 1/2, she had devoured every children book in the house and elsewhere. Last year, she started reading chapter books and had recently finished reading Blizzard of the Blue Moon by Mary Pope Osborne of the Magic Tree House series by herself. She never fails to amaze us with her vast knowledge of animals which she gets to read in Grolier's I Wonder Why books and Time Life' A Child's First Library of Learning. When we were studying about animal's habitats for a school assignment, I asked her what the habitat of a hippotamus is. She replied water and land while I said that its habitat is just land. She countered back by telling me, "But, Mommy, hippos give birth in the water." I was flabbergasted. She was right. There was also one time when she asked me if there were any fish that could live on land. I told her that there were none. She again replied with confidence oozing that there was such a fish, a mudskipper. Since I did not believe her, she showed me a volume of the Time Life books and correctly pointed out to me what she was talking about.

Reading has brought wonders to my children, brought them places they have never been to, widened their knowledge of the world around them, and on my part, it has brought me great satisfaction that I were able to share my passion with them.