A few months ago we started reading chapter books with Ian. We tried it because he seemed to have lost interest in reading books altogether (his interest in reading at any time other than before bed has always been almost non-existent -- unfortunate because it's an activity that allows the adult to sit, is educational, and creates no mess!). He enjoys watching the fairly complex Redwall TV series so much that we thought he might need more complicated plots and character development to hold his interest. For a while then he would only read chapter books, now he's settled into a balance of chapter and non-chapter books. We've completed Mr. Popper's Penguins, The Fantastic Mr. Fox, The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, several Magic Tree House books (which are unfortunately not well written), and maybe some I'm forgetting. We're currently in the middle of the BFG, Prince Caspian, a Mary Poppins book, and Marlfox (Redwall). The BFG seems to be his favorite of these because it has the meanest bad guys (the bad giants), which is a key criterion for Ian. The convoluted language the BFG speaks in is awfully confusing, but he's always more than happy to ask a zillion clarifying questions (he's not an easy kid to read to!).
We're really looking forward to the time that Ian can start reading himself. He slowly but steadily progressed in his interest in reading. The pinnacle so far was the other day on a color-by-number sheet where he sounded out "ra-eh-duh -- that says 'red'!". We're thinking that his reading skills should match up well with Lukas's listening level, and hopefully by next year he'll be able to read simple books to his little brother. Maybe we can just turn bedtime over to him?
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