The one about reading

We became the owners of a large cardboard box this weekend, the Little ones thought it was great, it became a bed, boat, den, hospital, and finally somewhere to chill with some story books complete with cushions and blankets, the little ones love to read. 

Little 1 'reads' the books, she tells the familiar stories and uses the pictures to create her own tales while Little 2 copies her big sister and repeats phrases and random words. They play for ages like this. You can hear that they are enjoying themselves from the tone of their voice and because they do this activity over and over in different places with different books on a fairly regular basis. 

I am glad that they are developing a love of books, I loved books as a child and still read most nights, albeit most of the time on my kindle not a good old fashioned paperback. We read stories every bedtime and let them each choose a book for us to read. There is always time for a story in the day too.

It is a shame in this day and age that children don't read as much any more, there is so much technology around it often just gets forgotten. We as a family limit technology a bit, yes the girls watch television for half an hour in the morning and a bit in the afternoon, when everyone is tired and I am cooking tea, but it is not on that much really. We only usually let them watch approved programmes and not just any old thing that's on (some children's shows I really dislike). We have their favourites pre-recorded so they are available when we want, at the moment they like Ben and Holly's little kingdom, Peppa pig, Time for school and Octonauts, we also watch Disney films, Tinkerbell and Cinderella are popular at present.

We don't have an ipad, tablet or fancy smartphones (although those things would be nice!) Little 1 does have an innotab which is brilliant and we have a couple of other electronic things but they all have educational games and elements and to be honest often they don't touch them for days. Little 1 occasionally asks to do some drawing on my laptop or visit the cbeebies website, Little 2 isn't interested in computers yet. 

Do I worry that Little 1 hasn't had access to all the latest technology, and won't be as clued up as some others when she starts school in September. No I don't, because she can read! 

She has had a huge interest in letters and phonics for a while now, we have been working on it with her and they have at pre-school too, she is now able to read some short words (mum, mummy, dad, daddy, her name, little 2's name, nanny, car, cat, jam, log, dog, jug, bug, mug and her friend's name) She is learning how to sound out letters and work words out, by the time she goes to school she'll be well away. Anyway they have computers and ipads there that she will learn to use.

My girls are growing up with a love of books and reading, influenced by us I'm sure. I hope we have helped to give them a head start in life and that their love of reading continues as they grow. I am very lucky to have such beautiful and clever children and I am so proud to be their Mummy.