My parents are avid readers and so are my siblings. I always have a book with me. I love to read. I have many books for Jessie and the foster placements. We make it a point to read every day.
Some months ago my moms’ group held a luncheon presentation about A Mom’s Role in Her Child’s Literacy Apprenticeship. I wanted to make sure that I was doing everything I could to raise a reader, so I was very interested in this presentation. The speaker was Anne van Kleeck, who was a University of Texas at Dallas professor specializing in children’s language and pre-literacy. She talked about how the best way to raise a reader and foster an interest in books and reading is to share, or read, books with children. This was so easy and simple a concept. And was something that I had been doing with each child in our home.
One of the moms asked Dr. Kleeck about the Your Baby Can Read program. Dr Kleeck saw no value in a program like Your Baby Can Read. She believed that the playing field is pretty even by the time the children get to school and any progress in early reading doesn’t help that much later. All I knew was the Jessie wasn’t really interested in the DVDs, so I wasn’t pushing it.
Every mom at the luncheon got a My First BOB Books set. I ended up with the pre-reading skills books for Jessie. The BOB Books focus on building skills in a specific area. Jessie loves the books even though she’s too young yet. This set focuses on shapes. Jessie will sit and look at the books, but mostly likes dumping them out of the box. The recommended age is four, so she has plenty of time.