Reading Victory!!!

I have to share this...it is so huge for us.  Raelee has struggled with reading.  Not so much HER struggling but me struggling with her.  She has done ok but next to her peers, she notices the difference and the difference is becoming glaringly obvious to her. Her friends have repeatedly pointed out that she is reading 'baby books' and while she doesn't say anything to them then, it cuts to the core and I deal with it later with her. She'll come to me days later crying about what her friends said and ask me why she can't read the fun books they are reading.  This has happened over and over again. All I can tell her is that I am super proud of what she is reading and she just needs to keep reading and she'll get better and better.


I have been searching for books that will grab her attention and want to keep her reading past her required '1 chapter a day'.  I found Breyer Stablemates books and have had one for a while. She finally read it and asked for another.  I got her this one:


She asked to read it last night.  So she read her one chapter.  Then she looked at me and said "Can I read another chapter mom?" (we were reading side by side, me reading my book, her reading hers. I have found she enjoys reading more this way than on her own)  I told her yes, she could read another chapter.  Before I knew it, she had read the entire book!  Now to be fair, the pages only have one or two sentences on it, and maybe up to one good sized paragraph.  But still.....that is what I have been trying for. To find SOMETHING that held her attention and caused her to want to read 'just one more chapter.'  I think we are there.

So, I put her in bed last night.  She took it upon herself to get back out of bed and grab a handful of her older books (storybooks) and read them all before she went to sleep.  This is HUGE for her!  Then...she woke up this morning and before she turned on the TV or Wii, she grabbed my Nook (I had no idea she had it..rofl) and tried reading (my very grown up book by the way).  She brought me the Nook and said "I think I broke it." She didn't break it, she just got herself out of the book somehow.  So, i asked her if she wanted her very own book on the nook.  Yes..she does. I downloaded her the Magic Treehouse book about Paris.  She curled up on the couch and started reading.

This is her reading my Nook with her "I'm concentrating" face..lol

I'm so proud of her!!!!!