Since hearing Jim Trelease at a library conference explain that children’s reading and listening vocabularies don’t align until at least grade eight, I’ve made sure to continue to read aloud to my boys. My eldest suffered from being let loose to read primarily on his own once he was able to and I can definitely see how the youngest has benefited from a richer read-aloud experience. His vocabulary is richer and his tendency to follow the text as I read has helped his own reading pace as well. There are definitely personality differences at play as well. The eldest gravitates towards sports stories and, frankly, there aren’t a lot of them with much in the way of complex plot twists.
After thoroughly enjoying Heroes of the Valley, we went back to try Jonathan Stroud’s earlier books in The Bartimeaus Trilogy. The cheeky djinni was a popular read, but I’m really looking forward to getting to know Kitty and the Resistance in The Golem’s Eye. I think Kitty and Bartimeaus will both be quite hard on Nathaniel!
