He reads....

It's amazing! And he isn't even 5 yet. I know I'm likely to be somewhat biased about my firstborn's intelligence, but I truly am astounded by how easily Patrick has taken to reading. Without a doubt the major credit for this must go to his absolutely fantastic teacher, who has made his whole first year of school the most positive and fun experience we could possibly have hoped for. Every teacher for the rest of his life is going to be a disappointment to him after Mrs Stephens! We love her (ok, we love her anyway since she's a friend of ours, but that's completely beside the point!) and I want to be in her class!

And it isn't just books he's reading - it's everything made of letters. The most common questions from him at the moment are "What does r-o-u-n-d spell?" (or whatever letter sequence he's come across) and "Does that say Spar?" (or whatever word he has spied). And just how happy was I when Michael's mum gave us all Michael's old Ladybird and Mr Men books for his bookcase? Pretty darn happy, I can tell you. They are so amazing, these old books that smell musty and bring back so many memories for both me and Michael of how we read them when we were kids, and which ones were our favourites ('The Magic Porridge Pot' and 'The Elves and the Shoemaker' were my personal favourites!) And it makes my heart literally sing to watch Patrick do his best to read one of them. He tries so hard, bless him. Admittedly, the combination of budding reader and stubborn 'I will do it myself' temperament is making the bedtime story a lot longer than normal and a little trying at times, but who could bring themselves to squash such eagerness?

 

Inspired by the reading bug and my reading of Soule Mama's book, I decided to spread the books out around the house a bit and created a reading 'nook' on the landing under the stairs to our bedroom. I've been wanting to use this space better for a while. It usually ends up housing things that should be somewhere else or baskets of unsorted laundry. So I am delighted to give it a proper purpose. I just shoved the beanbag from the lounge in there with a basket of books and a little book trough that I had brought from school a few years ago. I was secretly hoping that it might encourage the boys to lift a book more readily. And look what happened.

Can you hear the song my heart is singing now?!