Weekend Morning Reading Date

Before kids, weekend mornings consisted of breakfasts out, lots of coffee and reading. We'd sit with the Sunday New York Times or a book. We'd chat a bit, but mostly not. Still somehow, it felt like real quality time together. We hadn't done this in years - until this weekend. 

Our little one's preschool had a "Parent's Day Out" event that her sister could go to as well. Typically when we get to take advantage of something like this, we race around separately doing errands or buzz around the house tackling chores. But this time, due to an ill-timed soccer game for the big one, the girls could only go to the event for an hour. Rather than wasting time racing home and back, we decided to enjoy it, go to a nearby coffee shop and read. 

It was miraculous. We went to an adorable Parisian-style bakery, sipping on our coffee while reading the paper and our books. Chris is still into the political biographies, while I went with something lighter. It felt so fun to be out during the day doing something really relaxing. Hoping to lean on the grandparents or even get a sitter to do this again soon. 

Do you ever go on reading dates?

Learning to Read (at Home)

My daughter is in kindergarten this year. With an August birthday, she's one of the youngest in the class. She's a quick learner, and has always picked up on things like numbers, ABCs and letter sounds very easily.

When her senior kindergarten year began, she wasn't reading but was close on her way, knowing the letter sounds and beginning to read simple words. Throughout the year, they've worked at school on building up sight word knowledge, continuing letter sounds and sounding out words. She continued learning and improving, but she started getting frustrated when we would try to have her read to us. The year went by and although she'd made steady progress, she wasn't really reading and many others in her class were.

I know you're saying, it doesn't matter, everyone learns at their own pace. But it did bother me and I knew why. I wrongly assumed she'd learn it all in school, and that if we practiced at home a bit and read to her daily, she'd get it. Of course, in time, I'm sure that would work, but I am a huge resource to her and I wasn't helping the way I could. At school, while the teachers do an amazing job, she is one of 22 kids. Here at home, she is one of two. Clearly, we could do more to help her read at home if it wasn't coming to her easily. Why wouldn't we?

I talked to her teacher and learned about the different reading levels at school. Very few books at the bookstore use those same levels and understanding them helped me find more books that were right for her. Her teacher gave me a chart of Development Reading Assessment levels and how it correlated with guided reading levels. At her recommendation, I searched her DRA level on Amazon Google to found resources that helped me find books for her. Here is a similar chart on the Scholastic website that helps you find books by DRA level.

When I found the right books and dedicated 15 minutes a day to reading them, my daughter started making much more progress much more quickly. It's amazing what can happen when the books aren't too easy or too hard. She quickly began reading and it just took a little extra work at home. Now that I know what to look for, it feels easier to find books that are appropriate even if they don't show the reading level.

Whether through trial and error or matching the DRA level to guided reading level books, here are the books that I've found really helped when learning to read:

1. BOB Books - These are the first books we got that my daughter could read. They start with simple easy consonant vowel consonant (CVC) words and short vowel sounds. Repetition helps boost confidence.

2. Tug the Pup - These books I got once I found out her level at school and referred to the chart my teacher gave me. She was a DRA Level 4 which correlated to Level C. I started with the first set that is A-C, with reward stickers when she finished a book. She breezed through them, needing help on words here and there. I could seriously see her get better as we went through this set. We recently started working on set D-F. The stickers sound silly but they seriously motivate her to tackle book after book.

3. Biscuit - We've found the I Can Read and Step into Reading Series really inconsistent. Some "Level 1" books are easy and others impossible. When Charlotte starting to read we found the I Can Read Biscuit series. The Biscuit books are "My First I Can Read" level, which are fairly simple. My daughter likes that these are bigger books, rather than the small "easy reader" size. Biscuit Goes to School was the first "real book" she read on her own. While they don't teach her how to read in a way the early readers do, they build confidence and are consistent.

4. First Little Readers - These books from Scholastic are just like the ones the teacher sends home every week to practice. Here you get a huge pack of 25 books at their exact guided reading level. We are still working through our pack, but it is so nice knowing that she's working on the exact same thing she'd be working on at school. I think of these as perfect practice books. Once you master them, you move up to the next level.

It's easy to get anxious and want to move ahead when you see they are reading. What's worked for us is taking a step back and mastering the easy readers. Slowly we are starting to tackle some I Can Read Level 1 (again, not the same as guided reading levels - oy, so confusing with all these levels!).

Hope this helps anyone who has a kid who feels stuck. That's how we felt and it is slowly getting better. It takes the parents' hard work in addition to the kid's and I think that sunk in for me a little late. Just 15 minutes a day seems to be doing the trick!

Brushing Up My Vocab

I work from home as a part-time freelance writer. Most of my daily conversations take place with my 3-year-old, who often reverts to baby talk when she doesn't want to do what I say and begs to watch, as she puts it, "lots of Peppa Pigs." So you may understand why I don't always feel quite as sharp as I used to. I recently decided to brush up my vocabulary as a result, thinking it may at least fool me into feeling a little smarter.

I signed up for A.Word.A.Day on Wordsmith.org. Every morning a new word with its definition and usage is e-mailed to me. They've included colophon, frangible and expurgate. I haven't known one yet. Feeling smarter already. And now back to Peppa Pig.

P.S. Messy hair, don't care.

How Writing Helped Me Grieve

A couple weeks ago, my best friend from childhood's dad died. I practically lived at their house as a kid, so he was like a second dad to me for years. His death was unexpected and affected me a lot more than I would have thought.

I think one reason I'm writing this blog is because I can see how writing in my daily life helps me improve and connect to others. This became really clear when Jim died. My own and others' writing helped me grieve and heal. Here's how:

• I hadn't seen Jim much in years. The day after I heard the news that he died, I was trying to work but couldn't concentrate. I sat and wrote down a list of memories about him. It helped me remember wonderful things about him I hadn't thought of in years. Some were small, like that he ate peanuts in the shell while he watched baseball games. Others were bigger, like how he always made me feel like part of his family during a time when I really needed that stability.
• My friend's sister wrote a eulogy that reminded me about Jim's greatness and taught me even more about him. I think eulogies are such an important part of a funeral, both for the writers who can work though pain as they write about their loved ones, and the friends and family who need to hear these words to help them grieve.
• My friend's family did a great job displaying things about Jim at the visitation. One thing I especially loved was a display of letters he had written to one of the daughters over recent years. The letters gave her updates about his daily life and a real look into what was on his mind. I could hear his voice as I read a few of them, and felt comforted that they would have those letters forever.

Has anyone really important to you died? Has your own writing or someone else's ever helped you grieve?

National Poetry Month

Do you ever sit and read poetry? Do people do that? I so wish I did, but truthfully, I don't.

When I heard April is National Poetry Month, I Googled it and poets.org came up. Not only does it have information about the monthly event, it is such a great resource if you ever wanted to look up a certain poem, browse poetry in general or look for poetry events in your area. It also has a lot of resources for teaching kids about poetry.

I remember learning about poetry in school and certainly as a literature major, but it is not something I've kept up with one bit. Maybe just browsing the site this month will remind me about this genre that must certainly be at the top of the list when it comes to the lost art of writing. Hopefully it will lead to more.

What about you? Do you ever read poetry?

Date Your Letters

So, I'm going through all of the letters Chris and I have sent each other over the years. We saved a lot of them, which I'm so thankful for. It is so strange to think that writing those letters was so critical to communicating back in the day. Between summer camp (yes we've been together that long), trips abroad and the ridiculously high long distance chargers before cell phone days, we relied on these letters to keep our relationship going at times.

I've just started going through them and there is something that is really bothering me that I had to relay urgently, along with a strict order. If you ever write another letter, please please, put a date on the top. Chris was pretty good at putting a month and date, but not very good at adding the year. I was bad at it all. Granted, maybe at age 17 we didn't realize we'd be together this long, but I could kill our cute little letter writing selves right now. Sometimes I saved the envelop which has a postage date, but not often.

Were you good about this? What's wrong with me?