P-man Started Kindergarten Today!

Please forgive my late-summer hiatus. August is usually a crazy month for us, and this year was no different. We had fun spending time with family, going up north to the lake, and playing in the water. Today is, in my mind, the end of summer because P-MAN STARTED SCHOOL TODAY!

P-Man on his first day of Kindergarten

I didn't weep. I did get a little misty-eyed though. I am so proud and excited for my big boy and can't wait to begrudgingly pull information about his day out of him when he gets home. We went in for a brief Kindergarten assessment on Tuesday and I am happy to report that P-Man's reading was off their charts. He is going to meet with the school's gifted & talented specialist for another assessment and then get put in a pull-out reading group. I can't wait to see the results of the specialist's assessment. Every inch of me, especially the inch that went to school for elementary education, knows I shouldn't care so much about his reading score. I really, really want to know where he is at though. I don't even know what unit of measurement or test type the district uses yet. Are they a Lexile district? Do they use the grade levels as benchmarks? It will be interesting to find out. It will also assist me in choosing books for him.

Right now P-Man is reading beginner chapter books that have just as many illustrations as standard picture books. We cleared the library of the ones that match his current toy interests, for example Lego Ninjago books. In preparation for Kindergarten, I tried reading some of the 'Junie B. Jones' series to P-Man, but he didn't have any interest in those. It has been very interesting to see what he gravitates towards at the library.

I am just beginning to read the book Raising Boy Readers by Michael Sullivan (http://www.amazon.com/Raising-Boy-Readers-Michael-Sullivan/dp/1937589439). My dad got his hands on an advance proof copy and passed it along to me. I have read Mr. Sullivan's research on the topic before and he was definitely an inspiration for this mommy blog. This new book, out in January 2014, is written for parents and lists over 300 books labeled "boy-friendly". I can't wait to try some of his suggestions with P-Man.

As this school year progresses, it will be interesting to see what P-Man's school does to keep him interested. For now I will anxiously await news from the specialist and look to Michael Sullivan for suggestions to read at home.

Storytime Trolley: Why I Love Independent Bookstores

P-man (in blue) was totally captivated

We hit the little-boy-literary-event jackpot this last week. Excelsior Bay Books (http://www.excelsiorbaybooks.net/), an independent bookstore in a neighboring community, had storytime on the town's historical trolley with author David LaRochelle (http://www.davidlarochelle.com/). The trolley in Excelsior is on tracks, so my train-obsessed boys were excited when the trolley car came rolling up to the station. The boys were each given a cookie and a juice box and then we boarded the trolley. After a nice, short ride the trolley driver parked us in the shade (it was a very hot day) and Mr. LaRochelle told us some of his stories. We were lucky enough to get a sneak-peek at his newest book coming out this October called Moo! (It was hilarious, we will definitely be purchasing it). At the end of the stories we rode back to the start of the line and Mr. LaRochelle signed copies of his most recently released publication, How Martha Saved Her Parents From Green Beans. Both boys had a great time, even with the high heat, and P-man asked when we could do it again.

Author David LaRochelle read to us

This event was made possible thanks to the amazing staff at Excelsior Bay Books. It is a perfect example of the cool things that independent bookstores are able to do. For those of you who have never been to an independent bookstore, I highly suggest you hunt one down. In addition to Excelsior Bay Books, we have also have been to events at Red Balloon Bookshop in St. Paul (http://www.redballoonbookshop.com/), another independent bookstore that specializes in children's books. Our private story time with Sherri Duskey Rinker was at Red Balloon. I have been blown away by these bookstores. They both have great selections, an amazing and knowledgeable staff, and incredible events for children. I love that they both highlight local authors.

Not everyone is lucky enough to live by an independent bookstore, let alone two or three. We feel very fortunate to be close to these ones. Our family has found many wonderful independent bookstores when we have been traveling too. I hope you get a chance to visit one and see what amazing events they have.

I Can't Lie, I Hate Our Library's Summer Reading Program

We got a late start this year. It was mid-June before we got to our public library to "sign up" for the summer reading program. The thing is, you don't really "sign up" here.The summer reading program is completely different than what I am used to. When I was younger, a library summer reading program consisted of a sheet or folder with your name on it that you listed every book you read on. When a child read a certain amount of books, they got a prize. Often the prize was a bookmark, or a pencil, which was just perfect then. If you read a LOT of books you'd get a cool gift certificate for something from the ice cream shop or a slice of pizza. I remember years that you got to set your own goal for number of books read too.
When we lived in Iowa two summers ago, P-man did their summer reading program and instead of tracking the number of books he read, we marked down each day that he read a minimum of 20 minutes. For every 10 days he got an eraser, or pencil, or small plastic toy that is in the bottom of a toy bin at our house. He loved it. Then if we read something like 20 days, he got a gift certificate for ice cream or a hamburger from one of the fast food joints. If you read 40 days you got to pick out a book, and you got an entry in a drawing to win an iPad. That's right, an iPad. We did not win, but I found it fairly impressive for the library to be giving one of those away.
Now that we are in Minnesota I have to say I am a little disappointed in the summer reading program. When we went down to the library we found out that you don't keep track of your reading at all. Instead, after your child reads a book they either draw a picture about it (for the younger readers) or write a review (geared towards the older readers) on the special form they have. Then you bring your form in to the library and the bottom part goes in to a drawing for a book. You can also be entered in a drawing for tickets to the Renaissance Fair by putting your entry in a different box.

The forms from our library, still empty

I am disappointed in this format for a couple reasons. First of all, my son hates to draw. He is a builder. Legos are his thing. Give him a crayon and he will draw a couple lines and then ask you to draw something for him. He is only 4 and while he already rocks at reading, he just doesn't express interest in writing, or wanting to write, yet. That's totally cool, he is young and it will come. So we have these forms lying around the house that are untouched because he doesn't want to draw a picture of any of the 40+ books we have read this summer and he certainly can't write a review of one either.
The other thing that I find totally lame is that, should P-man finally decide to fill one of the forms out, his slip is an entry into a drawing. He may win a book for each slip he puts in, or he may win nothing at all. How absolutely heart breaking would it be if he filled out dozens of forms, brought them all in, put them in the box for the drawing, and then won nothing. The very friendly librarian who explained the program to us said that they had "tons" of books to give away (although they didn't have them displayed or listed anywhere either), but still, it is a drawing, not a guaranteed book. Where are the pencils and erasers, the little trinkets that kids in this age group love?
Summer reading programs are supposed to excite my little reader. He is supposed to get home and want to start reading right away so he can work towards his goal. He is supposed to ask me repeatedly when we can go back to the library to pick up his prize. That just isn't happening this year. I know that the library uses a combination of grant money and donations for their summer program, and that part of that money goes towards the entertainment they have (there will be a future, positive blog post on that subject). I don't know if the funds were really tight this year, if they don't reach out to area businesses for prize donations, or if they just really like the format they have. Regardless, it makes me a little sad, and a little reminiscent for the reading programs of my past.

Wes-Wes has come around!

I think it worked! I think writing this blog has reverse-jinxed us. Wes-Wes, who just turned 17 months, is now very willing to sit and have books read to him. He even asks (through grunts and pointing) to have books read to him. Just within the last month he went from not sitting through one board book to wanting a pile of 15 of them read to him each night. He started greatly enjoying nursery rhymes as well.

I am not sure what switch got flipped in him, but I sure like it! So far I have been sticking to board books. He has a tendency to want to rip them out of my hands at the end and page through them himself. Paper pages would never survive. He enjoys our Bill Martin Jr./Eric Carle collection, which is all the variations on Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See? The colors and repetition seem to keep him engaged. Wes-Wes likes to turn the pages quickly in this book so I find myself reading it at a very quick speed. Maybe a few of you can relate?

Wes-Wes' absolute favorite right now is Baby, Boo! from Amazing Baby (http://www.amazingbaby.net/).  

Don't really click, I 'borrowed' the pic from Amazon

It is very simply a peek-a-boo book, but he giggles every time and then does the sign for "more" when we are done (he only knows two baby sign language words, "more" and "all done"). There is a mirror page at the end and Wes-Wes sticks his face right up to it.

A friend of mine from high school is currently expecting her first and I was absolutely delighted to see that a huge chunk of her baby registry is board books. I was so wrapped up in bedding sets and diaper quantities at that point that I didn't even think to wander over to the book section and scan a few titles. Luckily we had lots of friends and family who were on top of bulking up our board book supply.

The other thing I love about board books is that they stash in my purse much easier than a picture book. P-man has started swimming lessons and I cram as many board books in my purse as it will hold (usually 7-8) to keep Wes-Wes occupied during the lesson. Even though they only take about 30 seconds to read, 8 board books will totally satisfy Wes-Wes for most of the half hour lesson. As I mentioned in an earlier post, choose your board books carefully, you will be reading them ad nauseam. I put a cap on reading one board book five times in a row. That is just about all I can take.

It is so nice to have Wes-Wes at the point where he will sit and listen to books now. What a great calming agent, and it is setting him up for a lifetime of literacy. Now if you will excuse me, I have to go stop him from using the board books as a weapon against his older brother.

P-man's Evolution as a Reader...thus far... Part 2

I am not going to lie. I have been dreading writing this next part of P-man's evolution as a reader. You see, after learning the nursery rhymes, the alphabet, and memorizing stories we read, the next step in P-man's reading evolution involved something I fear the literary world will look down on me for. It involves me allowing P-Man to (I can't believe I'm about to say this) watch a DVD. Not just one time, a lot of times. Dare I say, for awhile around age 3 1/2, it was daily. P-man's next milestone was learning the letter sounds, and he did it thanks to the LeapFrog DVD 'Letter Factory'. P-man loves all 35 minutes of it. I felt justified in letting P-man watch it so darn much when I learned that they have staff with PhD's in education creating the content. Honestly though, we let P-man watch more TV and movies than I think is recommended. Don't start thinking we are the kind of family who doesn't ever have the TV on except for news time. We are not that family.

I don't remember exactly where the DVD came from. Did I purchase it or had it been a gift? Regardless, the results were amazing. Soon P-man started pointing out letters to me and telling me what sound they made. He would find letters on signs while we were driving. He would point out a letter on a door at the doctor's office or a restaurant. It was amazing to see how aware he was of words all around him.

The DVD that really did the trick!

I took advantage of his new enthusiasm towards letter sounds during our nighttime reading. I looked for simple, three-letter words in our stories and showed him how each letter's sound could be put together to make a word. We started doing this right around his 4th birthday last August. Very shortly afterwards, I'd say sometime in  November, the next major milestone hit, and it caught us completely off guard.

It started one day while we were in the car. We came up to a stop sign and from the back seat P-man said, "Hey Mom, that sign says 'Stop'." Now, most children by age 4 know that a red octagon on a street corner means stop, so I just said, "That's right," and continued driving. I didn't give it much thought until the second instance a few days later. It was also in the car, and I had a witness with me (my mom). We were going through the drive-thru at McDonald's and from the backseat we heard P-man say, "Mom, that sign says 'Pay Here'." Mom and I looked at each other in slight disbelief. I had never even noticed the sign, let alone pointed it out to P-man. I said, "That's right P, how did you know that?" He replied, "I read it." I knew from our practice at home that he was beginning to know basic sight words like 'the' and 'and', but 'pay here' was a step beyond what I had heard from him before. It was truly like a switch in his brain got flipped and all of a sudden connecting letter sounds to make words made complete and utter sense to him. Back at home with our chicken nuggets, we began pointing to words and asking P-man what they said. He was able to accurately tell us more often then not., just so long as there weren't any difficult letter blends or funky vowel sounds. It was amazing. One day he couldn't read, the next he could. By Christmas he was reading bedtime stories to me. I can't even express the pride I felt and still feel today.

Now I wish I could go back and pay better attention to that point where sounding out words started. Was it something he just woke up doing one day? I sure can't remember what it was like for me, but I do know that I was an early reader too. For me, being read to every day as a child had the greatest impact. I like to think the same is true for P-man. We obviously let him, and now Wes-Wes, watch movies and TV. And there is a busy day here and there when we just don't get around to reading before they fall asleep. Overall, we do read, and talk, and tell stories a lot at our house, and I think the boys are better off for it. Hopefully when Wes-Wes gets to the point where he begins to read I will be more aware of it happening. Chances are that light switch will just flip, and I will beam just as brightly as I did with P-man.

Our Awesome Time Volunteering at a Library

Before I continue to explain Parker's path towards becoming a reader, I want to take a break and tell you about a great opportunity that came our way last week. I should start out with a bit of a disclaimer. I am, technically, a stay-at-home mom in that I am home with my children from the time they wake up until the time they go to sleep. What I haven't mentioned until now is that I work from 4am to 8am at Target getting all that lovely merchandise off the truck and on to the shelves for you to buy. I love Target. I met my husband at Target. That said, Target does not know about this blog and they are not paying me to talk about what the boys and I did last Tuesday. Now, on with the story.

Last Tuesday, P-man, Wes-Wes, and I went to the St. Paul Music Academy for a volunteer event set up by the Target store I work for. The St. Paul Music Academy (http://spmusicacademy.spps.org/) is an elementary school in the St. Paul School District that won a complete library makeover from Target. The boys and I, along with several of my co-workers, were there to help box up all the books in their library so that they can empty the space and give it a complete over-haul this summer. They are getting all new carpet, paint, shelving, and lots of fun new technology. I am so happy and excited for this school, even though I had never been in it prior to our volunteer day.

P-Man boxing up the 800's

P-man did a wonderful job helping me box up books. Not only did we box them up, but to help save the librarian's sanity, we made sure to keep everything in order and labeled all the boxes. It was a perfect opportunity to introduce Parker to the Dewey Decimal system, even if he didn't really understand what it was. Luckily for me, a co-worker's daughter, who quickly tired of boxing books, was more than willing to play with Wes-Wes while we worked.

It was wonderful to have P-man be involved in bringing a better library to a group of deserving kids. We got to talk about school libraries and how this fall he will have a library at his kindergarten center. Up until now, he has only ever experienced community libraries, so it was cool for him to see a library completely devoted to kids.

I am not sure if other Target stores are going to be assisting with the rest of the makeover, but I do hope the crew from my store gets to go back and help later in the process as well. I know the school library staff is beyond excited, and it sounds like the students got to help choose what their new library will include. I hope we get to see the great reveal at the end of the summer. I hope Target continues this great program as well.

P-man's Evolution as a Reader...thus far...Part 1

This spring I experienced the kind of mommy pride that makes you stand a little taller. P-man, age 4 1/2, was asked to read a picture book to the rest of his preschool class. His teachers were shocked that he knew how to read, and were very willing to dispense some extra positive reinforcement by asking him to read to the other students. Several other parents started asking me what we were "doing" to teach P-man how to read. I had to stop and think before answering that question. In my mind, we weren't really doing anything. I gave the standard, "We read at bedtime," answer and went on my merry way. I continued to think about it the rest of the week. What had we done with P-man that led to him reading picture books before even starting kindergarten? I had to go way back to when he was a baby, and so that is where we will start.

When P-man was born our little family was in a very different economical situation. I went back to work part-time when he was 6 weeks old and started working full-time again when he was 6 months old. Luckily, I was able to get him in to a wonderful daycare center that we loved. We would read his board books at home, but I have to give the daycare credit, because they started teaching the kids nursery rhymes and finger plays before I even thought P-man was old enough to "get it". Learning those nursery rhymes was truly the first stepping stone to making P-man the reader he is today. He was about 18 months old when we took this video of him doing 'The Itsy Bitsy Spider' and 'Wheels on the Bus'. Once Steven and I discovered that he knew these finger plays and songs, we began singing during dinner, during bath time, at major family gatherings, whenever we could. His exposure to the rhymes, cadence, repetition, and fun of the nursery rhymes and songs made up this first step and led to what I consider his next major milestone, story memorization.

As I mentioned, we had been reading board books to Parker from birth, but never with any consistency until he was about 16 months old. At that point our regular rotation of books consisted of those which annoyed Steven and I the least; a very important consideration when choosing children's books for purchase because you will read them over, and over, and over again. By his second birthday, Parker had several of his board books memorized. His vocabulary was still very limited, but he had heard us saying the words in those books time and time again. Of course he wasn't "reading" in the traditional sense, but he was able to look at the picture on the page and say the words he knew went with that picture. I called this his 'party trick' and made him "read" for both sets of grandparents, aunts and uncles, pretty much anyone who would humor me. Over time he would learn to not only recognize the picture on the page, but also the written word that went with it. That is why I find that milestone so important.

There were a couple other important things that we did before P-man was 2 years old in regards to literacy which I feel are worth mentioning. At about 20 months I started bringing P-man to storytime at the local library. A totally free activity that enriches your child's love of books? What is not to love? I was raised on storytime at the library and I highly suggest everyone with children hunt out a storytime session near them. We also began working on the alphabet and letter recognition around this age. I sang the alphabet to P-man several times daily since birth, mostly because it is one of the few songs I can sing in key (as you can tell from the 'Itsy Bitsy Spider' video). He could sing it along with me at about age 2 and so I began pointing out the print version of the letters when I saw them. These activities led to the next milestone in P-man's evolution as a reader. A milestone I will happily share with you in an upcoming post.

What I hope you take away from this post is that we did not invest in an 'As Seen on TV' system for teaching your child to read. We did not sit P-man at the table with flashcards and make him recite items over and over. We sang, we read, and we did a whole lot of 'The Wheels on the Bus'. All of which he found fun. The minute he got bored with it, we stopped. Wes-Wes is doing things at a slightly different pace. He gets bored with the board books more easily, but that's okay. He'll have his own evolution, and it will make this mommy very proud too.