New Reading Idea I "Discovered"!

My title is very tongue and cheek. Mostly I steal ideas from the much more organized and experienced homeschooling mom blogs I read. However the seed of this idea actually came from my cousin who does not homeschool, but has two voracious reader sons. She was telling me at Christmas that they both always have a book or two in the car to read. Well, most of our car trips are very short in-the-neighborhood errands, so I didn't really think about that as a homeschooling idea. Plus he is reading on his own, but not silently and I thought I had to be looking at the same page so I can correct if needed.

Today I decided to throw that out the window. By accident, at the Half Price book store, I discovered a "Junior Chapter Book" version of a series of books he and his dad read together. Flipping through the pages I knew this would be a challenge for him, but thought the familiarity with the characters and stories would keep him going.

Fridays we have two 20 minute or so drive times. This morning we were listening to an audiobook. We had not finished it and I expected him to want to hear more for the afternoon drive. I had forgotten I had thrown the new book on the back seat. He saw it and decided to read. Remember he is not a silent reader so he is reading aloud to me, although often I couldn't hear his precise words due to traffic and road noise. Every now and then he would speak up louder and read a sentence with a spelled word and then tell me his "guess". He was usually close, but it allowed me to help him with unknown words even though I couldn't see the page.

This I decided was a much better way to teach a LOVE of reading, as opposed to just reading lessons (although he will certainly still get those). Later he told me he loves so many things - dancing, singing and reading!