Posts tagged as:

reading

Learning her letters

November 2, 2009

Serena was running down the gallery above her sister’s swim class when she caught sight of something that stopped her cold: a plaster bust wearing a baseball cap.
She walked around it very carefully. She got down on all fours to examine it from below. She pointed and looked meaningfully at her mama, who is also [...]

Tagged as: education, reading, serena

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Grateful for public libraries! (aka: first library card!)

August 14, 2009

Rio got her first library card today.
Yesterday we were biking home from somewhere, and she said “Mommy! You and Daddy have a lot of books for you, and for Daddy and for other people, but you have not bought enough books for me and Serena.”
We own, for the record, over 500 books for young children, [...]

Tagged as: reading, rio

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Taking back childhood

August 11, 2009

I’ve been reading Taking Back Childhood, by local author Nancy Carlsson-Paige. It’s a lovely guide for the attachment parent who is moving beyond baby care, with clear, specific advice for practicing gentle discipline and clear communication with school age kids.
In addition to exploring specific situations as a way of teaching her readers how to better [...]

Tagged as: attachment parenting, books, parenting, reading

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The long pause in learning

July 26, 2009

A few months ago, Rio seemed to be right on the cusp of learning to read. She was practicing writing every day, for hours. She began copying whole sentences out of books, writing out words like “amazing” along with her standards – Rio, Mama, love.
And then she stopped. I wasn’t surprised. She’s done this before. [...]

Tagged as: education, reading, rio

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Check it out: I'm "flashlight worthy"!

May 13, 2009

I have an article up on Great Memoirs for New Moms”, on a blog called Flashlight Worthy Books.
I love the idea of their blog: assembling lists of books so good you can’t put them down, on a variety of topics. I also love the execution; I’ve linked to them a few times because their lists [...]

Tagged as: blogs, reading, writing

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Reading Games for Four-year-olds

May 12, 2009

rio’s reading game.jpg, originally uploaded by MzMuze.
Rio made this!
Background:
I’ve been reading an interesting book, published in the 70s, called the Home Guide to Early Reading. This is pretty much the opposite of the Waldorf approach I’ve taken with my kids thus far. The author advocates a playful but structured approach to teaching reading beginning at [...]

Tagged as: homeschooling, play, reading, rio

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The Shrinking of Treehorn

May 8, 2009

Serena took this book out of the library. I think she chose it because it was a nice shade of green and charmingly square.
When we got it home, I noticed that the drawings were by Edward Gorey, a favorite artist of our entire family’s. We’ve been to visit his house on the Cape, and generally [...]

Tagged as: homeschooling, humor, reading

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Mother/child stories

April 15, 2009

Being a mom in fiction is a rough deal. If you haven’t been killed off to make way for the Evil Stepmother, you’re probably wasting away with illness. Or hopelessly out-of-touch, like Coraline’s mom. Or, like Eloise’s, simply absent from your child’s life.
There’s a good reason for these tropes. Much great literature for children is [...]

Tagged as: parenting, reading

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Willpower

March 29, 2009

Rio’s favorite read these days is the Frog and Toad books, which I love because it was my favorite when I was her age.
Right now, we are both loving the chapter called “Cookies”, in which Toad bakes far too many cookies, and he and Frog have to figure out a way to stop eating [...]

Tagged as: humor, reading

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