Update: Kicking Off Baby Bookworm’s Second Year of Reading

Baby Bookworm is officially through his first year of reading as a big time 13-month old! I had been planning to share bimonthly updates of what he’s up to after his first birthday, but it seems like he’s still changing so rapidly that a monthly update is in order!

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During independent playtime and sibling play time, I will often find Baby Bookworm sitting in the midst of a pile of books, contentedly “reading” on his own. Books are neck & neck with his toys (which are neck & neck with non-toy items, such as remote controls, DVD cases, tupperware, and piles of laundry). He has clear favorite titles, regardless of how I try to rotate books in different positions on the shelves. He goes right to Goodnight Gorilla and any of the Matthew Van Fleet animal photography books, especially Moo and Dog (pictured above, to illustrate my point perfectly as this was not posed!).

I learned the hard way that he’s not quite ready for unsupervised reading of books with “weaknesses” (i.e. pull the flap, fold out pages, pop-up elements, and the like). At the end of one particular independent play time I had amassed for myself quite a few patients in the Book Hospital, in need of some TLC in the form of book tape. Ooops. We’re sticking with board books and cloth books for now for those free access book browsing times. (If I forget, I will hear Preschool Bookworm cautioning “No, no, we don’t rip books!” He totally has the Love & Logic uh-oh song down: “Uh-oh. This is so sad,” said with lots of empathy and a calm tone. That’s reassuring!)

Somewhere along the line, Baby Bookworm discovered that wandering around the story room during library programs is a viable option. Until recently, he has been relatively content to stay either sitting on my lap or standing between my bent legs. Unfortunately the program needs to move FAST or he’s going to be moving fast… Just today our librarian applauded Baby Bookworm’s speed crawling abilities.  “It’s like he has turbo boost,” she said. I know it’s typical of his age, so I am going with the flow. He’s soaking it all in, but doing so in an ACTIVE manner. I want him to learn to associate the library with fun and exploration, not rigidity, rules, and scolding. So, we are grateful for understanding librarians and fellow patrons. That’s not to say there aren’t some age appropriate boundaries–anything that creates a problem for anyone else on the planet, speaking of Love & Logic (blocking someone’s view, invading others’ personal space, making noise that prohibits others from fully participating). In the meantime, we have Preschool Bookworm serving as a fine example of “criss-cross applesauce” for inspiration.

This visual I spotted in The Happiest Toddler on the Block, taken by the author from Your Two-Year-Old by Ames & Ilg (which I have not read), cracks me up because it is just so accurate for what I see in my house, and on our library trips for that matter! Sorry for the fuzziness of the image- top right is movement at 18mo, center left at 2 years, center right at 2.5 years, bottom left at 3 years, and bottom right at 4 years–  showing how much each age moved in a 7 minute time frame!

The time is moving so fast, along with Baby Bookworm! I suspect I’ll be upgrading Baby Bookworm’s title to Toddler Bookworm very soon!

Keep Reading!

Melissa

Books mentioned in this post should be readily available at your local library, or at the Amazon affiliate links provided.