Foster at Play and Becoming a Bookworm

Foster has always loved books, being read to and audiobooks especially. At four he would listen to the whole BoxCar kid set, then it was Captain Underpants and then Hardy Boys. But reading on his own has taken awhile. We hit a turning point last Fall when we went to see David Pilkey, author of Captain Underpants and Dogman at the Library of Congress. Seeing him in person and learning about how he struggled a bit in school and was able to overcome these challenges was really inspiring to Foster and something clicked. He began reading Dogman, literally tearing through the full series. Then we went through all of the Roald Dahl books.

This continued into the winter and as the days got older we would find him often cuddled up reading. In January he read a while 15-book series of the Treehouse stories, then it was on to the Wimpy Kid books. When the pandemic came, he finally had an interest in seeing about those Harry Potter books that had been on his shelf. The last day of school, I sent him with his backpack and told him to get whatever books he could carry. He came home with Harry Potter #4 and #5 and several Wimpy kid books. 

Once we started he literally begged me every day to read. Morning, lunchtime, evening, before dinner, and when it was time to end he would cry for more. Slowly we got through the first 4 books. He also started listening and relistening to all of the audio books. Finally he decided that he likely could read them too. We incentivized this by letting him watch the movie for the book if he read it.

I haven't minded reading with him though knowing that the days of him needing me to read him anything are almost over. In fact, I make him share in the reading now and have to consistently make sure he isn't reading ahead.

While we were home he had to read aloud to an adult each day. We had a list of relatives and a neighbor who he would call on the phone and would kindly listen to Dogman and Wimpy Kid for the umpteenth time. It was wonderful to see how he had become a bookworm!

He hasn't worn this pilot gear in awhile, it might be small, but it still fits so he can still play make believe with Kai when he feels like it.