Another reader in the house

Usually, on the nights my husband is here to tuck the kids into bed at night, he’ll read our son a bedtime story. However, not too long ago, he informed me that, instead of reading a book to Jesse, Jesse read a book to him. He couldn’t believe it. The first book Jesse read to his daddy was Put Me in the Zoo. Wow!

Ever since then. Jesse is reading everything he can. He’ll try to read signs, words on the TV, article headlines in the newspaper and words he’ll see on the computer monitor. It’s like a flick has been switched and he can’t turn that “reading bug” off.

He is 5 years old. And I think it’s pretty darn awesome he is reading.

Still, it’s not like he can read every word he sees. Last night he was reading one of the frog books I checked out at the library and he did have some trouble with some of the words. I read the words to him then he’d read them over again. I figured that while he does well with reading, I guess he’ll need help with bigger words.

Or so I thought!

This evening, I was reading in one of the books I am currently reading while he was taking a bath, and he asked me, “Why is that book called Mad in America?”

I almost dropped the book. I asked him to repeat the last word. Repeat it again. I was not entirely sure he’d said what I THOUGHT he said. I even asked Jennifer to double-check for me.

And, yes indeed. He did indeed read the word “America.” Wow!

Well, maybe he was trying to pronounce it and figured out what word it was. The word IS on a poster at his preschool, so maybe his preschool teacher had told him the word was “America.”

I still thought it was pretty cool he read the word “America.” Yay!

Of course, I’m a little sad I won’t get to read to him so much anymore. He usually wants to read the books himself. I have to let him read the books himself. I did that with Jennifer when she started reading (and she is one of the top readers in her class) so I must allow that to happen with Jesse, as well. I am only glad he is reading now and working on improving his reading skills. I look forward to helping him boost those reading skills in any way that I can.