Go Jake, Go!

The other night Jacob and I were reading one of the many short books that Jacob gets from school. He's supposed to read them over and over until he can read them "fluently." Reading education has definitely evolved from "Dick and Jane," but the book we were reading this particular night was still a bit dull. Stuff like "Ned and Lil can plan. Ted and Ben can play." Etc.

I had a copy of Go Dogs, Go on the nightstand because Casey had picked it out for her bedtime reading. Jacob has been read versions of Go Dogs, Go since he was a baby. I had a condensed board book version of it that I bought for a plane trip that Jacob and I took when he was one years old; I also had a pop-up version of the book that I got at Costco one year. When Casey was a baby I finally got the whole book, which is 64 pages long. At the same time, many of the words are short and fairly easy. Also, many of them correspond to the pictures. It occurred to me that Jacob might be ready to read it.

So Wednesday night I put Go Dogs, Go in Jacob's hands.

"Hey, why don't you try reading Go Dogs, Go? I'll stay right here and help you."

When Jacob started it was about 8:15. When he finished it was almost 9:00 PM! At one point Jacob took a break, during which he counted to 100! But at the end of the night Jacob had read his first "real" book. He was exhausted, but so proud. Here's a 60 second excerpt of his journey!