Mighty Reader

For Charlie, this year has been one of exploration and growth, both academically and socially. He is smart as a whip, friendly and always keeps us in stitches with his jokes. Although I wasn't intending to count this year as a Kindergarten year, he certainly has been learning like a k'er, and I have no complaints about the ease with which he seems to pick up on things. Besides learning simple addition and subtraction, he has gone ahead and learned to read on a strong 2nd grade level. Alrighty then. I'm not even sure when it happened exactly. We spent a modest amount of time this year with him reading easy readers and picture books aloud to me. Then about a month ago he discovered the Ricky Ricotta and His Mighty Robot series books on Will's bookshelf.



I poo-poo'ed him when he said he wanted to read them to himself at bedtime and actually told him it might be too hard. Bad Mommy. He sat down and started to read the first one to me without hesitation. Huh. Now, Ricky Ricotta is not really classic literature, but Charlie is so smitten with these books that he has read all 7 over and over and over again.

Every night he climbs into bed and reads until 10PM when I enforce lights out. It is a bit late, but how can I say no when he asks if he can read "just one more" before going to sleep. Ben and Will also started out on Ricky Ricotta stories and they are amusing little books. Perfect for little boys. Also piled next to his bed are the Henry and Mudge books (well loved by William), Billy and Blaze (bought especially for Charlie. I've always wanted these books on our shelves) Poppleton, Mr. Putter, and whatever other random book he collects on our library trips.

When asked about reading Charlie tells me "Well, I'm just good at it because I'm older than little kids. And I like to do it." Lucky me with 3 boys who like to read!