As homeschoolers and bibliophiles we spend a lot of time in Libraries. They're one of our children's favourite places. I love their potentiality. What treasures will we find? What new subjects will we decide to learn about? Will they have our favourites? Yakari, Sheltie, one of Kazuo Iwamura's lovely Mouse Family series? There are thousands more of course and so many waiting to be found and that's the wonder of libraries. What are your favourite books for children and for adults? What was the last great read you picked up?
Being new to the area our local libraries are completely new to us and so last week we spent a lovely afternoon discovering Pontivy's Espace Kenere.
A trip to the library is a long affair in our family. Each child heads off independently (yes even the 2 year old) to find their books. We do our own browsing, picking out things we find beautiful or think will interest the children or ourselves. We also guide the children towards the shelves that hold the books on subjects we know they're interested in.
Once they get them home, both our beginning reader and our 'non-readers' (I'm not convinced this is really an accurate term) spend hours with their books. Their noses stuck in them, right on the page, devouring them, this is their first fling with these new treasures.
They pick up an awful lot of information without either of us having read a page to them. I believe this is also one of the most important steps on their journey to reading. Not only is their passion for the written word growing, so is their understanding of the myriad of universes and knowledge books can unlock and at the same time they're studying the code and structure of the written word and trying to make their own sense of it. It's fascinating and heart warming to see.
Later, over the weeks that these new friends spend in our home, we will read them together many times and that will be our part in this journey. But the children will also carry on with their own discoveries, copying out a section of text that interests them or drawing pictures inspired by the stories or watching a film because an interest has been sparked. So many connections spreading out like a web from that first and most exciting object of potential, a book.
Once they get them home, both our beginning reader and our 'non-readers' (I'm not convinced this is really an accurate term) spend hours with their books. Their noses stuck in them, right on the page, devouring them, this is their first fling with these new treasures.
They pick up an awful lot of information without either of us having read a page to them. I believe this is also one of the most important steps on their journey to reading. Not only is their passion for the written word growing, so is their understanding of the myriad of universes and knowledge books can unlock and at the same time they're studying the code and structure of the written word and trying to make their own sense of it. It's fascinating and heart warming to see.
Later, over the weeks that these new friends spend in our home, we will read them together many times and that will be our part in this journey. But the children will also carry on with their own discoveries, copying out a section of text that interests them or drawing pictures inspired by the stories or watching a film because an interest has been sparked. So many connections spreading out like a web from that first and most exciting object of potential, a book.
