Before my son was born, I had a lot of ideas about how things would go. I can go back now and just laugh at myself. Oh how naive I was! But I really did have hopes about how things would go. Since I was a classroom teacher, many of my hopes surrounded reading. One of the first things I did when preparing the nursery was sort through all my books and decide which ones to display in his room. I chose my favorite stories, and a good variety of fiction/nonfiction/poetry. I envisioned myself rocking him in a rocking chair and reading him stories in my best voices. I pictured us cuddling up for bed time stories. I envisioned him loving it.
Yeah…not so much. That lasted a couple months. Then he gained the use of his arms, and decided he wanted to hold/rip/chew/throw the books…anythings but sit there and listen to them. I tried every day, but mostly he just cried. “Oh, woe to me…what am I doing wrong,” I thought…..
Then I attended a library workshop that put things into perspective for me. The most important thing for babies and toddlers is to have positive experiences with books. So short 2-3 minute (or 10 second) positive experiences with books many times a day is the ideal.
So I packed up my carefully arranged bookshelf with all the favorite stories, and I bought board books. Lots of board books. Anything he could rip, chew, feel, and explore. The kinds of books with one word per page were best…because he didn’t let us stay on any page longer than that.
Now Elias is in control of the books. He has been for months now. And something great happened…he started to actually enjoy books and reading. He now asks to sit on my lap, and brings book after book after book. He turns all the pages himself. He even knows when the book is upside down…and corrects it! He points out funny or special pictures. He says words he knows. He loves reading. It’s not what I envisioned. I never get to actually read him a whole story from beginning to end. But that will come later. Right now I tell him stories, but books are for fun and for learning.
Elias reading to himself.
This morning I was so happily pleased. I was cleaning up our breakfast mess, and looked over to see what Elias was up to. He had gone over to the bookshelf, pulled off some books, and crawled up on the couch all by himself. This is what I saw. Win, Win, Win!