Extreme Reading

Tommy loves to read. Or rather, to be read to. I knew that he read probably more than other kids, but I had no idea how much more because I never really kept track of it except for one absurd afternoon when he requested 33 books in a row (I counted the stack). It turns out that my boy is a freak. Just like his mum.

Our library has a summer reading program. It is a nine week program, and the kids are supposed to be read to every day for fifteen minutes, for a total of 945 minutes over the course of the program. You keep track by crossing off a little picture for every fifteen minutes that the child reads. A prize is offered for every three week segment (315 minutes) as well as a completion prize.

The program started two weeks ago.

Tommy is done.

He turned in his sheet yesterday and received his prizes, stickers, and a "continuation sheet" for more prizes. I suspect he will earn a few more before the summer is through.

Ready to turn in his reading log

Tommy with one of his prizes, a book of opposites

You may wonder how Tommy managed to finish so soon- we read at least fifteen minutes before nap and before bedtime, and the rest of the day we read on demand- provided it isn't nice out and then we go outside. The last few weeks have been fairly rainy, and opportunities to play outside have been limited, so we often end up spending 30 minutes reading in the afternoon- or else I have to spend the afternoon being followed by Tommy waving a pirate book and yelling "read, read, read."

We don't watch much TV, and Tommy watches no TV (haven't needed it thus far) so reading is our go to when he is too tired to run around. And yes, he has other toys. The current favorites are trains with tracks, blocks, and Lincoln Logs. Unfortunately T thinks that Lincoln Logs are chunky drumsticks. He also loves to color providing it is on something that we value and not scratch paper.

Now, the big plan is to see if we can win one of the grand prizes. For that Tommy and I are teaming up to see if we can read a high enough number of minutes in the family contest (average per person). I don't know that we can do it considering that reading to Tommy requires extensive amounts of my time, and lots of the families have kids who can read to themselves, and who are not toddlers who need lots of exercise and outside play. I overheard one mom telling the librarian her kids have been staying up really late reading- and Tommy and I are not sacrificing our health for a library contest. Happily, we are only aiming for second place. The first place prize is not something we want, but second prize is awesome. I'll let you know how it turns out. My hope is that while we might not read as much as some families, we might be more diligent in remembering to record our time.

Tommy has already won huge preschool bragging rights- did I mention he was the FIRST pre-reader to complete his reading? Check out the pre-reader wall and whose fish has the MOST stickers.

How come none of these other fish have any stickers? Oh, yeah...that's right.

You might wonder if Tommy understand the whole reading contest thing. I can't say for sure, but I can say that the other day he grabbed his reading log and ran up to me clutching it while repeating "prize, prize, prize." I think he gets it.

I've got to stop blogging- I've got some reading to do!