Reading Aloud

I went to hear the wonderfully inspiring Marilyn Brocklehurst talk about encouraging children to love reading on Tuesday.

Critically she said that it was the parents job to make reading FUN and the job of the teachers to teach the "decoding". She explained that therefore reading aloud and sharing stories and with your child was even more important than hearing your child read.

I don't know why we'd got so stuck with Sam, but hearing Marilyn has liberated me to just read aloud the latest David Walliams book to him, despite the fact I think he should be reading it by himself - and we are both loving it.

I realised today that the same applied to me. Couple of weeks ago I'd picked up a book by Will Self "Umbrella" as am going with my Dad to see him at The Hay Festival. However on bringing it home I realised it has no chapters, no paragraphs, jumps around all over the place and is 400 pages long.

I started it, got to page 19 stopped & found even the smallest excuse never to pick it up again.

Using the principle that it is much easier to be read to to, today I downloaded the audio book . It really works! It is so much easier to take in....& I've got plenty of dog walks to do between now and the end of May. Not sure if I like it yet mind you, but I'll give it a go.