Reading, Part 1

I have had difficulty keeping Ryan supplied with appropriate books of quality these days. He reads at about a fourth-grade level, but the books for that age are not always appropriate for a six-year-old. So when we were at the library recently, I sat on the floor in the children's chapter book section and dug through to find some books that might interest him. I gathered a few that I am still trying to get him interested in, but I hit the jackpot with the Hank, the Cowdog series.



I first heard about Hank on the First Lady Laura Bush's reading list, and I had read the beginning book in this series aloud to both kids last year. Hubby and I thought it was hilarious; however, either the humor was over their heads or they just didn't find Hank as funny as Mommy and Daddy. But when I found one book in the series entitled The Case of the Swirling Killer Tornado, I figured he'd give Hank another try. Sure enough, he devoured that book in less than three hours! So later that week we went back to the library to find a few more Hank books for him to enjoy.

As a side note, we homeschooling moms often feel terribly inadequate and like we're not covering all the bases. We have chosen a very basic curriculum, and I sometimes struggle with feeling like we're not doing enough (whatever enough is). But as I was running a report on the work Ryan did last year, I was stunned to see that he had read 27 chapter books last school year...27! That's almost as many as I read and only includes the books I counted for school and not all the dozens of other picture books and "fluff" books that he also read. At least I can feel better about the reading portion of our school!