Everyone is a reader!

Bit of a different blog post as Hector is at school full time.

It was World Book Day last week so it seems the perfect time to reflect on Hector’s reading journey.

Reading has never been easy with Hector. He has never disliked books. On the other hand, he has always, even when he was a baby, found sitting still difficult. This is in sharp contrast to Max who stops crying as soon as you start to read even if he’s not being held.

When I was pregnant, I had visions of reading all the books I had loved to Hector but this was not to be. I could certainly read them and I do, but until very recently he would run round the room while I did so. Even if this is how you read to ‘boys’ (apparently all girls sit nicely while they are read to) it just isn’t as satisfying.

Adjusting your own expectations is hard. Nevertheless, I put away Castle Cole and started with the 10 Little series. This could have been designed specifically for ND children. It has a sentence per page, lots going on and a number on each page. Perfect when training a Hector to listen to a story.

I think one of the hardest things is that noone teaches you how to engage a ND child with books. All the advice assumes a passive child who will sit and enjoy a story with you. It wasn’t until I read ‘It takes two’ that I considered that reading wasn’t something that had to be done ‘to’ Hector but that I could enjoy the books with him in other ways, for example by just looking at the pictures. Unfortunately, even when I did ask for advice at his previous school they refused to even signpost me in the right direction. I was incredibly thankful that day to have a community Facebook group to rely on for actual practical advice.

I should say, Hector loves books. Sometimes if he doesn’t like my book he flicks through his own instead. The challenge for a while has been for him to allow me to read with him as he has been looking through books on his own for at least a year.

It has taken 4 years but there are now a small handful of books I can read with Hector. By this I mean he is fully engaged and wants to turn the pages. His online journal also regularly mentions him engaging with books. I’m sure he will soon extend his repertoire which currently consists of: