Okay so I don't mean to toot my own horn but when the child development experts say read to your child everyday I actually listen. I really really really think reading is important. Duh, right? Carina has know her letters for years and for at least a year has know what sound each letter says. BUT she just hasn't had a lot of luck putting the sounds together and actually reading. This is exceptionally difficult for me. Why? It is like grating to my soul to watch Carina struggle with reading. I suppose in part at least it is my own childhood issues with reading that contribute to my angst. When I was in the 2nd or 3rd grade I spent sometime in the Resource Room in school getting some additional help with reading skills. I really want her to read. We are trying and have had the BOB books for sometime now. I was thinking that there was a motivational issue here, after all nearly everything Carina has attempted to master has come very easily for her. She spoke at an early age and before that was signing. She walked at 9 months. Even skiing, which she has all but given up at this point, came pretty easy for her. Uh the skiing, I'll save that anguish for another post. So back to reading and motivation...there is a salon at the mall that has child sized pedicure stations. Complete with cute chairs; a bear and a princess and each chair has a DVD player. So I convinced Carina that once we get through the BOB books, there are 12 in a packet, that we could go get a pedicure. We went for a visit to help reinforce just how cool it will be and Matt conveyed our strategy to the technician there who, like many nail techs speaks Vietnamese considerably better then English but she jumped right on board with the story that Carina would in fact have to be able to read before she could get a pedicure.
