The Reading Record

Wonderful! So glad Simon found a book to devour and I hope he finds many more. As for what to call Katie -- I like "our Katie". My daughter was given a teddy bear by her much loved babysitter from when she was Anna's age and we all still call it" My Katie's Teddy". My daughter always called Katie -- "MY KATIE!"
~Beth

ahhh it makes me want to cry. My son who is now 8 loves to read and can struggle with getting started on a book, but once he does he doesn't want to put it down! So exciting to watch it grow. My daughter who is 5 is just learning and I can't wait for her to fall in love with reading.
P.S. My son loved the Treehouse series, he is now just getting into the Goosebump books...
GOOD LUCK!

My Logan is at about this stage too. He just finished his first chapter book in school, and he loves books, but reading is an uphill battle for him. We tried "Dragon", but not with as much success as you had. Still working on finding that right one. Congrats on finding it for Simon! There's a whole series of those too, yay!

Allie - so awesome for you and for Simon. My son devours books. He gets so caught up in them that he can't hardly concentrate on other things so sometimes we have to limit his time with a book, but my daughter doesn't seem to be as interested in them. She is doing it her own time. As many of the different movies, etc. Simon enjoys are parts of a series he may ultimately get into the series types of books. These are what have truly done it for our son. He has read all 15 of the Wizard of Oz books and loves each one of them. If Simon likes one and it is part of a series, I would definitely grab the next one and see if he goes for it. Knowing the characters, etc. fuels my son. He rereads some of the books over and over again. There are a lot of the series, both old and new that you can get for the Kindle or on an iPod with the Kindle app. We use this method for probably half of the books our son reads now. Congratulations!

Great story!

Awesome! There's an entire series of these books. My kids (elementary and middle school) adore them.

I've found a lot of good suggestions for reluctant readers in How to Get Your Child to Love Reading by Esme Raji Codell. It's a great book and has many wonderful suggestions. She also has a blog where she reviews books.

I actually teared up when I read the last line of your post..."the last word was sunshine". What a great thing it is when things in our lives end in sunshine! What a great thing for Simon to remember! What a great thing for you to share his attention to this little (HUGE!) detail! Thanks Ali!

My 8yo DD has loved HTTYD for about a year now. It also inspired her to read. The power of finding a topic that interests a child who isn't interested in reading is AMAZING. (And just so you know: WalMart has exclusive rights to all HTTYD toys/merchandise so you won't find it at ToysRUs, etc.).
CONGRATULATIONS!!! :-D

That's so awesome! I know reading was a bear for me until I was in Middle School and now it's rare when I don't have a book in my purse and two or three on my nightstand so you really never know!

I love the sunshine quote! I'll second what someone else recommended--the 39 Clues series by Rick Riordan and a series of authors. The first book is Maze of Bones. My 7 and 9 year olds love them. They have hidden clues to decipher and history is woven into the plot.

That is so cool. Has he read the Harry Potter books? I know he has seen the movies so maybe the connections will be the same? Esp. with the first three - the movies follow the books so closely.

And Boxcar Children - LOVE those.

Way to go Simon! I am a school librarian and I see my share of reluctant readers. Simon might like the "Dragon Slayers' Academy " series by Kate McMullan. Very popular at my school.

I hope he'll find many more books he'll like this much, because it's the best feeling in the world to escape into the magical worlds that can be found inside of books!

I'll never forgot how much my daughter HATED to read in 1st and 2nd grade especially. She would get very frustrated because the different sounds letters make didn't make sense to her. She was (and still is somewhat) a very black and white person. To her an "A" should make an "A" sound, it didn't work for her that sometimes it was "aw" or "a" or whatever. Now she is in 7th grade and we can't keep her in books. She LOVES reading more than anything in the world and reads hundreds (it's true) of books in a year. She is obsessed and is never without a book or her Kindle in her hand. I am SO GRATEFUL! Anyway, my point is I used to dread the reading log because she hated doing it and I hated that she hated it...but it all worked out in the end. She found her groove and sadly, on the rare occasion she gets in trouble we dont' bother taking away her iPod or her cell phone...those things don't matter to her...we have to threaten her books....what a strange turn of events, huh?

I LOVE this story!! (the story of Simon finding a book he loves, although, How to Train Your Dragon is a much loved book by my Alex, too) My nine year old would much rather do ANYthing than read a chapter book...both my husband and I LOVE to read and so when he finds a book he's excited about, it's a great feeling.

Amy

The Dragon books were a great find for us, too. You know there are 7 of them, right? They significantly increased my daughter's reading level because they were a challenge to read. She loved them all.

Way to go Simon!!

i just had a weird realization when I saw that picture (first of all - hooray, Simon!) that what I consider your "autograph" is really your signature ;) and being a parent you use it to sign things like reading logs.

Awesome story! It totally brought tears to my eyes! Way to go simon. That is one thing I pray for my children...a love of reading. Thanks for sharing Ali.

That last lane is priceless---I think I see a layout in its future! My son loved the Dragon series, way better than the movies in our opinion.

I'm wondering if he's given the Harry Potter series a try. I know you're both fans, and I've found getting them in paperback (and even ripping them in two if necessary) makes them more kid friendly. He'll be amazed to learn how much is left out. Sometimes when I start reading aloud, my son will run with it because he's too impatient to wait until I have time to read aloud again.

There's nothing better than the RIGHT book finding the right kid at the right time. Awesome that you captured this!

sooooo sweet!!! maybe he would like more books about dragons! or harry potter?! go simon!
tara

[...] I scanned Simon’s Reading Record and included the journaling from this post. [...]