The Joy of Reading

I have always loved reading. Within the past year, I have found that helping Jacob learn to read has brought me so much happiness. It is so wonderful to share the things that you love with your children. When I spoke with Jacob's teacher earlier in the year, I was full of questions about helping him with his reading. She explained that most kids really seem to catch on to reading around the holidays and she said to just keep working and being patient.
Tonight Jacob and I sat down with his assigned reading book and he just seems to have come so far. He went through so confidently. So then for a bedtime story, we chose one of Logan's books...

I decided this book probablly had a lot of words that Jacob knew, so he read the majority for me. It's so exciting to be able to have him pick up a book off the shelf and recognize over half the words within. Obviously friendly was a challenging word, but it doesn't phase him as long as we take our time and I am there to help. However the word fish was actually more of a challenge. First he said fishies, which didn't really bother me, but I did read the title back by saying 10 Friendly Fish. He responded with where is the "s," indicating the word fish. I explained there is no such word as fishes. But why, Jacob asked. I responded that it is like the word deer; there would be 10 deer, not 10 deeres. But why, Jacob asked. Um...just because. God bless the English language and all of the question that must be answered, just because.
I have spent time studying language, and I know our language makes very litte sense. Lucky for my kids, I love the language and I am a grammar freak and I will constantly tell them the rules. No matter how annoying I am or how many times I have to say, just because. :)
Well, speaking of reading...I have moved from the Twilight series to Stephanie Meyers' "grown up" book, The Host. And I am loving it. She does an awesome job of developing characters. So I am off to spend some time reading, before I go to sleep.