Getting the boys to read...

I know, I'm a slacker.  I still need to post pics from our Connecticut trip.  I am going to do that.  Really.  REALLY. I still have to sort through the almost 1,000 (no that's not an exaggeration!) pics that my favorite photog snapped during our trip.  I will be starting to post them this week.  I'm sure there will be several posts, so I can touch on everything that we did. :)

And now for something completely different... (the hubs is going to be SO proud I used a Monty Python reference, hehe)

I am an avid reader.  I can't remember a time in my life when I wasn't reading.  Sure, genre preferences have changed, but I have always loved to read.  I can lose myself in a good book.  I transform the words from the pages into vivid, full color images in my head.  I don't just flip the pages and make it through the story.  I read and experience every word.

Walter is the same way.  He has always read.  When we met, I  knew this was the man I was going to spend the rest of my life with.  There were two reasons for that emphatic knowledge.  The first was the fact we both considered macaroni and cheese a life necessity.  The second was the fact that the two of us could be completely enthralled in two different books, but as long as we were in the same room together, we thought we were having quality time with one another.

When Bailey came along, we both naively thought that our kids were going to be natural readers.  How could they not be, right?  We bought him all of the soft baby books.  As he got a little older, we progressed onto the harder, thicker baby books.  I'm sure you can imagine how we felt when we watched him with those books, hoping he was going to adore them as we do ours.  Now I'm sure you can imagine how we felt when we watched him eat them instead.   Over the years, it didn't get any better.  Sure, he stopped eating them.  But he never got to the point where he wanted to read.  He read the books in the preschool that they read.  He read the books in Kindergarten that the teacher told him to read.  But there was never any real desire to read.

After a little more than a year of homeschooling, I finally discovered that it wasn't the reading that didn't interest him.  It was what he was reading.  Me going to the library and picking out books on a grade appropriate reading level...well...it sucked.  Bailey didn't really care.  He would rather watch something, than read about it.  This finally started to change when he watched the movie "The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe."  He LOVED that movie.  When his daddy told him it was based on a series of books, he was very excited.  That was probably the first time he held any interest in reading about anything.

He hasn't finished that series yet.  He started a little too young I think.  But the book bug had finally burrowed in. He has since read the entire Captain Underpants series, read several of the Magic Tree House  books and is thoroughly enjoying his foray into the world of Percy Jackson and the Olympians and that series.  I was introduced to a great website that I hope will help me find things that interest him enough to read about them. Homeschool Literature is a website that has books about homeschoolers and homeschooling, but it also has books written by homeschoolers!  Bailey loved the movie "Eragon" and is going to read the book when he's done with the Percy Jackson books.  I wish you could have seen his face when I told him that the author, Christopher Paolini, was not only homeschooled but wrote the first draft of the book when he was only 15!

Braeden is in the process of learning to read.  He's doing ok.  Not reading as much or as quickly as I would like. But you know what?  I didn't think Bailey was ever going to pick up a book on purpose.  I'm trying to give Braeden some time and not put any great expectations on him right now.  I'm sure that once he finds his groove, and finds a topic or storyline that interests him, he will finally pick up a book too.  And pick it up to read it, rather than pick it up to use as a weapon against his brother. ;)