My son has desperately wanted a chapter book about vehicles for a while. His sees his older sister reading chapter books and he views this as the next step up in reading.
We couldn't find anything age-appropriate
that fitted the bill
so we order an adult book about
the history of Land Rover.
As soon as it arrived, he sat down and flicked through the whole book.
He looked at every page
but didn't make any attempt to decode any words
and didn't ask what anything said.
When he got to the end he announced he loved the book.
Over the next few days he kept returning to it, flicking through it many times.
Around the same time my older daughter received a new book (about husky dogs). She is a strong reader and yet, she too, flicked through the entire book before reading any of the words. She also declared she loved her book.
For me, witnessing this process, it perfectly illustrated how kids don't fall in love with books by sounding out letters
or even reading words.
They become readers by falling in love with the experience of books.
This echoed something I'd read in a book I like by John Holt. He described a young child who couldn't read but sat 'reading' a book out loud.
She perfectly imitated the experience of reading - even pausing in the middle of a sentence as she turned each page.
Holt wrote: "The world of books was opened to her when for the first time she clutched a book in her hands and thought
"This book is mine!".
This is fundamentally different to the more conventional process which first teaches sounds, then letters, then how to decode words and so on. This child may know nothing about books 'except how to figure out what the words say'.
But the first child,
they know: 'everything else about books, including all the important things.' [Holt]
Young children don't need phonics practice, they need books that invite them in.
Books about the things they love.
Books about the things they are curious about.
Books they can claim as theirs.
This is what we hope the Where Are You Going Today? books will be to children passionate about vehicles!