Stories

Today in Parent Ed, the discussion was about storytelling. It included telling stories to your child, encouraging your child to tell stories, and writing down stories told by the child and by other relatives. The teacher made a real quick mention that writing down the stories your child makes up can be a step to reading (i.e., show them a picture and ask them "what's happening in this picture?", then write their "story" down as the picture's caption).

This very quick remark about the "step to reading" got me thinking about Julianna.

She is becoming a reader before our eyes. There are quite a few words she can read, and she is pretty good at sounding things out. There are a lot more words she can't read, but she is definitely coming along. I feel like it was just a couple of months ago that she couldn't even identify all of the letters of the alphabet, and now she knows what sounds they all make. Watching reading bloom seemingly out of nowhere is really interesting, as it was with Katie. (Speaking of whom, I suspect that Katie has been helping Julianna learn.)

Anyway, back to the Parent Ed discussion - it made me think about Julianna's interactions with books up to this point. She has been "reading" books for a long time, meaning that she takes a book (picture, chapter, you name it) and makes up her own story while turning the pages and pretending that she is really reading it. I love hearing her made-up stories in the car, and even though she is "reading" out loud, she is only talking to herself. I have to sort of eavesdrop.

Usually her stories are conversations between the characters. Sometimes they are inspired by the pictures, and sometimes there aren't any pictures, so they must be coming from just her imagination.

I hope that even though she is starting to be able to read the words in books, she keeps on making up her own stories as well!