The Start of an Exciting Journey

I’ve just enjoyed a blissful ten days home alone whilst my partner and 3 ½ year old daughter, Bea, were away on holiday. It was of course wonderful to have them back yesterday and in particular the happy return to the bedtime story routine as I told Bea the tales of the Three Little Pigs, Billy Goats Gruff and The Gigantic Turnip before she fell sleep after an exhausting day of travel. So lovely to have her back, until this morning when she woke up at 6am, demanded cocoa pops, her red spotty dress, music to dance to (6.20am) and then had a strop when we said she couldn’t watch telly at 6.50am. We managed to appease her with a Snow White book and CD she’d brought back from holiday, and she was soon quietly pouring over the pictures and following the story, cocooned in her Thomas the Tank Engine tent.

One of the most exciting things about being a parent is witnessing the amazing journey of learning to read and I am really curious to watch the learning process. Bea is at the age where she is fascinated by the words and symbols around her, beginning to make the connection between the shapes of letters and their meaning – the beginning of all kinds of magic. There is nothing cuter than passing Bea’s bedroom door and seeing her immersed in a book – often reading it ‘out loud’ to her self. Every parent wants to see their children read confidently and independently and experience the pleasure that reading and entering other worlds brings.

Bea was never going to escape books. During her first few days I would take advantage of her 3 minutes of wakefulness and wave cloth books with photos of babies at her which she found fascinating. I swiftly progressed to The Gruffalo’s Child, my small daughter hidden behind it’s tall pages and by seven months she was literally consuming entire board books – there was no need for a snack if a buggy buddy was at hand.

There were books she had obsessions with and demanded to be read over and over again – How Do You Feel? (great for teaching empathy, she would keep going back to the picture of the lonely bear crying); I’m Not Cute (brilliantly captures the frustrations and stubborness of toddlers); My Granny Went to Market (counting across the world); Biscuit Bear (an irrisistible combination of biscuits with icing and a scary dog); The Growing Story (a beautiful story about growing up); Never Use a Knife and Fork (delightfully naughty); Tiddler (very cleverly tying in with Finding Nemo) and many many more. Of course there were also the books I was less keen to read over and over again such as Thomas the Tank Engine (tedious to read aloud!), endless pink princess books and books with annoying noise chips.

Reading to your child gets more and more exciting as you are able to progress from board books with simple words to picture books and simple chapter books with stories you can really get into. Earlier this year a friend brought a copy of the 1950s Dutch classic Jip and Janneke, a series of very short, simple and witty stories about a little boy and girl who live next to each other which seemed pretty dull to me but Bea utterly adored and loved to be read to. Seeing Bea enjoy her first chapter book, in a fit of enthusism I rushed off and bought Olga da Polga which I loved as a child (although I suspect I came to it much older), and was sorely disappointed to see Bea very quickly becoming bored and starting to (quite literally) climb the walls. The same has happended on the occasions I’ve tried to read Winnie the Pooh and learned she’s not quite old enough for these stories – they’ll have to wait. For now, simply told fairy stories are perfect, with their combination of glamourous princes and princesses and scary witches, wolves and giants they can definitely be enjoyed over and over again.