Lovely Little Shelf

I am kind of playing this parenting thing mostly by ear. I, for the most part, have no idea what I’m doing and just respond to Izey and hang out with him and love him.

There is one thing though that I’m pretty purposeful about and that is making sure that he has a love for books. I, as you guys know, love books, and I attribute that in part to the fact that my mom read to me every single day of my childhood. We had a bazillion books and even though she was a busy, working, single mom she was never too busy to sit down and read a book with us. I have a lot of fond memories of snuggling in beside her in bed while she read to me.

Here she is reading to Izey during her last trip up here. So frigging sweet.

I started reading to Izey the very day he was born and in my memory I haven’t skipped a day. In the beginning it was always initiated by me, but now that Izey is older, he brings me books to read about every five minutes. Sometimes I don’t feel like reading, but I do it anyway. I stop cleaning, blogging, whatever, and plop right down with him and read about the Hungry Caterpillar one more time.

In order to foster his (still young) love of reading, we have baskets of books in every room of the house and a bookshelf of books in his room. When he lays down for his nap, I put a pile of books at the foot of his bed so when he wakes up he can read for a little bit on his own before he hollers for me. Sometimes he is in there for an hour, awake and content to just have 5 or 6 fun books to read.

Another thing that I’ve been purposeful about is letting him touch/explore books that seem “too big” for him- paper picture books from the time he was 4 or 5 months old and I don’t scold him for pulling my books down and flipping through them. I don’t want him to be afraid to look at something that is “too advanced” so I’ve started young letting him think that any reading material is good for him. We started telling him young to “be gentle, it’s a book!” and so far he has not tore up one single book from my shelves and has only tore up one of his.

When he is playing happily and independently or when he is reading on his own, I often pull out the book I’m reading and let him see me reading for enjoyment. Once again, this is just how I was raised. My mom is a big reader and I grew up seeing her plow through books. Even now we are always swapping books and talking about what we are currently reading. Kids love imitating their parents and I think that him seeing me read could only be beneficial.

I’m not saying that I have it all together, I really don’t. I’ve only been doing this thing for about 18 months and I’ve screwed up a lot and will screw up way more as the months fly by… I guess I’m just sharing the little things that I’ve done in these months to try to give Izey the best chance I can to be an enthusiastic reader.

What are you doing to help your kids find a love of reading? What have you found that works/doesn’t work? Does your kid love to sit in a pile of books and flip through them one by one?