The Reading Corner

After Christmas break from home school, we started incorporating "independent reading" time into our daily school routine. I use the word "reading loosely. It's more like pre-reading, but I have been impressed with how Ivelina has taken to her new reading corner.

In the corner of our living room, I added a basket full of books and her little rocking chair. There is a mixture of library books, books we have at home, and books about our school theme of the week.

Each day at the end of our school time before we work on abcmouse.com, we set the timer for 10 minutes, and she sits in her corner to "read" quietly. She enjoys this time, and does really well staying interested in her books for the full ten minutes. We will hopefully extend this time as she matures and gains more stamina for reading.

Ivelina has a favorite book from the library, which we have checked out many times. This is the first week that she has started memorizing this book. I'm excited because this is a great pre-reading skill for her. The book is called Brown Sugar Babies. It has seven babies to represent the seven different colors of dark skin tones. Each page describes the baby with food words: honey, caramel, chocolate, peanut butter, black cherries, etc. We read it multiple times a day.

Here is must-see footage of Ivelina "reading" her first favorite book. Some of it is mumbling, but I put subtitles to help you hear her words. Here's to more reading improvement in 2015!