Eating through books, video to prove it

Two things I really wanted to teach my kids was a love for Jesus and a love for reading/great reading skills.

If you know Aidan you know that he is a voracious reader.  Reading through series after series many grade levels ahead in no time.  In fact, his night stand is littered with 8 books as I type that he is reading right now.  Seriously how does this kid do it?

When I was home preschooling him I tried everything to get him to be an early reader.  I thought for sure he would be reading well before he went to kindergarten.  He had all the basics and love for books, he knew his alphabet and kindergarten skills by the time he was 3 but he truly didn't take off reading until he was in school.

His sisters on the other hand have been working their way to catch up to him as fast as they can.  Both girls have been working hard this past year to learn how to read.  They have improved their sight word vocabularies enough to be able to read most pre primer type books.

Both girls love books and enjoying reading them to us.  I love having reading time and watching all of the kids park themselves on the couch with a good book.

Both girls were super excited when we went to the library over the weekend and picked out new books.  We found one early reader that they both could read and they were BEYOND excited!  Alayna wanted to take the book to my parents house to read it to them, so that is just what we did!

The below video is Alayna reading a Rigby level 5 reader (which is their equivalent to a kindergarten or early 1st grade reader).  Not bad for a 4 year old.



Here is Dariya reading one of her Learning Program books.  Not bad for a girl that spent her first 3 1/2 years in an orphanage and didn't know how to open a book when we met her!




I know great reading skills will help my kids be more successful not only in school but also in life.

I pray that all of them continue in their love of reading and that the girls reading soars like Aidan's has over the years.

Reading IS fun!!!

Being a teacher, one of my worries when Alayna was born was that she would not learn to read.

You see to me reading is everything.  It transforms your world, it takes you places, it helps you navigate life, it builds your creativity and expands your horizons of knowledge.  You need to read to do most things in life.

So for my girl to be unable to do this was a horrible idea which haunted me for a couple months.  I then ran into an older couple in the grocery store who had a 24 year old son with down syndrome.  After talking to them for a few minutes they shared with me that he wasn't able to read and that they really thought the educational system had let them down (and no I didn't ask, because this only further fueled my fear!)

Leaving there I cried all the way home.  Jason thought I was a nut (which I just might be) but, I was determined to have my children be readers, good readers, excellent readers...well you get the idea.

So, from early on Alayna and I (and Dariya as soon as she entered the picture) have worked on language skills. I used the See and Learn program with her when she was little, have worked on sight words with them, have labeled things around the house and now we have begun our journey with the Learning program.  (Both programs are free downloads on their websites).

I can proudly say my girls are beginning to read.  Alayna understands that print means something and that words are the same even in different books.  Dariya is getting there but, little sister has the "I wasn't in an orphanage for 3 1/2 years, left alone to not learn a stinkin' thing" advantage.

Learning is a journey and I always think I haven't done enough with the girls but, somedays I look back at them and realize just how far they have come and I am super proud of each of them. 

Aidan came home from school this week and was excited to be a peer model for the kindergarten class.  He is helping them review and learn their ABC's.  He commented, "Mom, I am so impressed that Alayna and Dariya both know all their letters and sounds because these kids in kindergarten still don't know them all yet."  Yay team Cannon!

For your viewing pleasure, here is Alayna reading a new book.  We read it together twice in the morning and this was her third viewing of this particular book after her nap.  Pretty good stuff girlie!

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Reading is fun

As a former teacher, I know the importance of reading.  

As children with ds tend to have great sight word memory the reading specialists suggest teaching children with down syndrome to sight read before you teach them the alphabet as the letters and sounds probably won't have as much meaning to them.

It would be my kids who do it backwards (per the specialists).

Alayna has known her letters and sounds for a long time (not because of anything special I did but rather because she wanted to learn them) and Dariya is quickly picking them all up because she knows her sister already knows them.  

Truthfully, Alayna memorized her letters exactly the same way Aidan memorized his.  They played with those magnetic letters on the fridge or foam ones in the bathtub and would make up things for each letter.  For example, A is for Alayna, D is for Dariya, P is for Pop Pop etc.  The ones Aidan made up were all around characters from Dora the Explorer as he loved that show when he was little.  D is for Dora, B is for Boots etc.

Alayna has been able to sight read words including our names since last spring.  So I wrongly assumed she would just take off and by now she would be reading novels.  Well ok not really novels but, you know what I mean.

However, she hasn't been too interested in continuing working on learning sight words so I dropped it for a while.  

After the reading conference I attended at the end of January I have tried to make a conscious effort to work on reading a few minutes each day with the girls.  

Thankfully they both have been super excited about it and are requesting these books daily.

Here is a couple clips of her in action.  She had this book memorized after the first couple times she read it and has now transferred the words to other books and is so excited when she sees a sight word she knows in one of our reading books or in the real world.  

Praying that both girls have a love for reading, like their big brother the book worm!