Leaving Notes To My Four Year Old

When I was a little girl, I remember playing "school" with my two younger brothers.  I was the teacher while they were the students. I've always loved reading, so I would teach them how to read. I had a difficult time getting one of my brother's to stay on task while the other one pretty much hung on to my every word.

As we grew older, my brother [who wouldn't pay attention] had a hard time academically, while my other one became a star student and an avid reader.

Reading is also a passion that I purposely hand down to my own children. Going to the public library is like another trip to the grocery store for us....and usually we will leave out of there with no less than 10-15 books at a time.

I've been actively teaching Micah to read for about a year and a half. (He's 4 1/2). In order to do that, I have to change things up a lil now and again to keep it interesting and fun. Sight words have become his least favorite activity, while learning phonics is more appealing to him.

Since he wakes up before I do, I've started leaving him notes in the morning. One week I will leave notes with pictures, then the next week I will leave the same notes but without the pictures. He then reads them to me. They look a little something like this:

He absolutely loves it. It just tickled me tremendously one day how disappointed he was when I forgot to leave him a note. It lets me know that he looks forward to reading my notes each morning.

I've also noticed that when we are out in public he now likes reading signs, posters and billboards. He's not quite reading books by himself yet, but that's not necessarily our main goal at this point. My focus is making sure he enjoys reading first, then everything else will fall in place.