Sometimes Easy is More Fun

Bob Books makes one of the best sets of early reading books commonly available to us parents.  I think this is the hardest level to buy for, and you can't find it in the library - when your child can read a three-letter work like cat, but not much more.  You wouldn't think it would be that hard to write a book just using the short letter 'a' sound, but I guess not too many people do it!  When you do find the right book, and your child feels that pride of reading an entire book for the first time, it's an amazing experience.

Anyway, Damon received the first three sets of Bob books as gifts, but he was already past the first level at the time.  I was going to return Set 1 for something else more challenging, but hadn't gotten around to it.  A couple of days ago, he insisted on getting them out.

"But those are too easy for you, now," I said.

"But I want to read them!"

Well, OK.  You can't argue too much with a kid who wants to read, right?  He opened them up and started reading.  He read the first few on his own (there are twelve in the set), then decided to read to Dad.  Before we knew it, he'd gone through the entire set, reading one after another and elaborating on the stories by describing the pictures.

In the end, I was glad I'd let him open the books.  Not only did it give him a great sense of pride and satisfaction to go through the whole set so easily, he was able to show off his skills to Dad (who doesn't get to see him read as often as I do), and it helped solidify his skills.  You can never get too much practice, and taking that time to go back and reinforce the basics from time to time will really help him later on.

Sometimes we parents get carried away pushing all the time for our kids to do challenging work and keep progressing, but we forget that sometimes it's just more fun to not work quite so hard.  And fun is good.  I want my kids to love learning, and to have fun reading.  Sometimes easy is more fun.