Inspiration!

My friend Melany has inspired me! I received her Christmas letter last week and she talked about how her seven and five year old love to read. So I emailed her and asked her how her kids love reading so much, what sort of things she does with them... She emailed me back saying how her husband loves reading so they take after him, but then she said that they don't watch t.v. all week long only on weekends. Also, that her 3 year old knows all the alphabet names and sounds and that she is going to start teaching her to read pretty soon. I thought that was all amazing! I'm a preschool teacher and I never thought I could teach my own child to read! She says, she teaches them before they go to Kindergarten so when they get to school it's a fun thing not a hard frustrating thing to do. So here are a few suggestions she told me that she does...
No t.v. She says when her kids are board they will open a book and read! We don't watch very much (only at nap times) so now when we watch t.v. on the weekdays it will just be learning videos. I just started this this week...like Leap Frog videos "The Letter Factory" and math videos and other phonic videos.
Bob Books: I just checked some out at the library and I'm going to start doing what I can with Max. Max knows his phonogram sounds, but doesn't know all the names. The program we use "RIGGS" says they don't need to know there names, but I'm learning that it would only help them to know there names as well.
Read to your children: I've also been reading (or doing my best to read) a children's literature book to the kids for 15 minutes a day and then I have Max tell me his favorite part of the story.
I was so inspired by her I just had to share this wonderful information with all of you!