My first son didn't sit still for an entire book for a long time. A page here or there and then he was off to explore. I would just keep reading and pointing things out to him and laughing at funny things, or acting surprised or whatever (which would make him come over to see what all my emoting was about). I had a lot of children's music on tapes and cd's (which is funny because he absolutely HATES any kind of music now) which I think replaced a lot of the lap time reading because he could move around. Eventually, reading to him became so important to both of us and I remember he went from non-reader to fluent reader over spring break of K....and then progressed rapidly thereafter. I call it the 0 to 60 miles an hour plan. His K teacher was instrumental in providing the foundation (he already knew all his letter sounds) but the explosion I believe was that over Spring Break he just "got it" and when he put it all together it was like late 2nd grade level immediately. I do think that was just when he was ready developmentally to put it all together and crack the code.


...reading is pleasure, not just something teachers make you do in school.~B. Cleary