Tuesday, December 3, 2013

Slice of Life - My Reader

Slice of Life is hosted at the Two Writing Teachers blog every Tuesday. 

It's a cloudy afternoon in Maine, and the ground is covered by a new coat of fresh white snow, the first of the season.  We sit not quite side by side on the couch, me leaning against the back, her snuggled under her Mickey blanket against the pillow.  A library copy of Joy Cowley and Nic Bishop's Red-Eyed Tree Frog sits open between us.  The book was checked out for first grade wonderers but hasn't yet made it to the classroom, claimed instead by the curly-haired wonderer at home.  Her eyes go from questioning to amusement as we read through the little frog's day.  "He sleep all day?" she asks, wondering what kind of silly frog would do a thing like that.  Choruses of "What's that?," her favorite question, accompany nearly every page.  She giggles at the katydid--"Silly bug"--and her eyes go wide when the frog jumps to escape the boa snake in a dramatic double page spread.  The frog goes back to sleep as morning comes to the rain forest, and as I close the book, I hear "Again!"  Later she will pick it up on her own, talking her way through the pictures.  "Frog sleep all day."  "No eat caterpillar."  "Jump!" "Frog go to sleep."  My baby is a reader.

One red-eyed tree frog
plus one wide-eyed two-year-old
makes reading magic.


10 comments:

  1. Awesome! I love the way you set the scene and let the story unfold. Perfect haiku at the end. Welcome to slicing! :-)

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  2. AWESOME! It is such a cool feeling. I have taught kids to read for so long, but have never been in on the process quite this early. My almost-three year old loves to finish the sentences in familiar books and I love the emerging conversations we have about books.

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  3. Oh, I love this. You modeled for her and then she was able to read on her own echoing all of the good things you worked on together. How magical!

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  4. love, love your first post and how magical that she captured the wonder of sleeping all day...I'm having fun watching my grand baby at our house with the same reactions books...it seems like just suddenly she has become a 'lover' of them all

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  5. Welcome to our writing community! And, what a lovely slice - you captured the joy of reading so perfectly.

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  6. Welcome! I like how you called the first graders and your two year old wonderers. That is a perfect word. Thank you for sharing this magical moment.

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  7. Love your curly-haired wonderer.

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  8. I love the line "My baby is a reader" -- I can feel the weight of what that means to you. Welcome to slicing! We are glad to have you!

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  9. Reading is magic and is even more special when you have a little one to share it with!

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  10. Thank you for sharing this with us! I loved how I could hear your child's voice as I read your piece. Nicely done.. (makes me miss the little days with my own sons!)

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