My eighth grader is a voracious reader and always has been. While I've culled hundreds of books, primarily by donating them to used book sales, we still have bookshelves overflowing with books from about second grade reading level up. And so in the evenings when the youngest asks if he can read in bed, I always bring him two or three different novels that his older brother enjoyed. Without fail he rejects them all, scowling and gnashing his teeth. Lies! LIES!
One night recently I brought him one of the Diary of a Wimpy Kid books, plus two more. He scowled and gnashed and dropped them rather roughly on the floor next to the bed, then chose his own book, something light and cheery like Naval Battles of the Great World War.
Only the next day he caught sight of the Wimpy Kid book lying open, with its funny, doodley illustrations. And he picked it up and flipped through, reading nothing but laughing admiringly at a few of the stick figures' predicaments.
Cut to last night. I go in to turn out his light and MOM NO MOM I NEED TO KEEP READING. I look and he's on page 47. I delicately ask, "Did you start at the beginning? Are you reading all the words?" in almost a whisper, like the whole scene is made of spun sugar and could collapse. And he looks at me like I'm Flaming Idiot Número Uno and says, "Of course. That's how you read these novel things."
This morning the first thing he picked up was the book, and when it was time to begin our schoolday he reluctantly put it away, but he kept his eye on the schedule, just biding his time until Free Reading.
He's on page 211 now.
DON'T ASK ME TO EXPLAIN IT.
nonfiction read & react: It's a grand old flag
math unit: Chapter 1 review, Houghton Mifflin Math North Carolina, Grade 4
daily poem: "What to Wear Where" by J. Patrick Lewis
4 comments:
Hard to overstate the advantages George has from loving to read. If he did not have this, you'd be hard-pressed to give it to him; but with it, the world opens to him.
Diary of a Wimpy Kid is apparently magical. My boy is a bit of a reluctant reader, and we discovered DoaWK and similar books last school year. Then he realized that reading could be more than just a chore! He read 2 and 7/8ths of the first three Harry Potters this summer. #proudmama
I agree wholeheartedly with wunelle, so it pains me to have kids who don't love reading as much as I do!
I'm blessed that both my kids love to read, but unfortunately George's reading has been strictly of the nonfictional variety. I'm not ready to say we've won that war, but I can say it was a good day on the battlefield.
RLR, tell me which other books J. found similar enough to like!
Congratulations - it's a good start!
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