09/05/2016
Two years ago, I signed up with Usborne because they had a great deal on kits that month, and I couldn't pass up the deal. I didn't want to sell anything, I just wanted the books! I had a 3rd grader at the time, and while he wasn't exactly struggling with reading, he didn't enjoy it at all, and trying to get him to reach his AR goals was a struggle.
Not long after I got my kit, I realized what an opportunity I had. I read a lot about childhood literacy, and the epidemic we have in the USA of children who are not learning to read at grade level. One of the biggest factors in kids learning to LOVE reading, is exposing them to books they LOVE. My son loved non-fiction books. He didn't enjoy chapter books, he wanted to learn things! So I bought one of our beginner non-fiction sets, that are all about different animals. When he was short of his weekly AR goal, he could read one of these books in an evening, and take a test on it the next day. Once he got through those, he moved on to some easy chapter books, and so on, until he had read almost every age appropriate book I had, and almost every book that his school library had purchased from me!
Last year, by the end of 4th grade, he had moved up to Young Adult novels, all of his own accord. He had the highest AR points in his classroom at the end of the year (nearly 100 for the third trimester), and he willingly read all summer! He is a self-proclaimed expert on Greek Mythology, and will talk your ear off about all things Percy Jackson. The highlight of his 10th birthday was getting his own library card, and pooling his birthday money to buy his own Chromebook, because he wants to be an author! He has also been spending time with our Coding for Beginners Using Scratch book, so he can animate his stories when he writes them.
Two years ago, I would never have believed that my son would be reading so high above his grade level, or so voraciously. If I hadn't stumbled across Usborne books in 2014, and seen the value in finding "THE" book(s) that sparked his interest, he could be in a completely different place now!
