making of a great reader

being a teacher, it's ingrained in me to constantly teach. reading was my favorite subject to teach and so i read to molly all the time. she loves to listen to books and she's already doing things that good readers do at 15 months! one of my favorite things to teach my students about reading was making connections. i loved helping them relate what they were reading to themselves, the world around them and other books they had read. molly does an excellent job of making connections. while we read she will connect things in the book to things in her immediate surroundings and even beyond. for example, if there is a broom in the picture, she points over to the kitchen where i keep the broom. tonight she pointed outside when we talked about the birds. she points to the cats when there is a cat. we talked about watering a garden with a watering can and she pointed outside where matt's garden is. molly also recognizes that other people aren't at our house and points outside. if we talk about grandpa and grandma she shrugs her shoulders and like she doesn't know where they are then points outside because she knows they're not at our house. while i may miss the classroom at times, i know i've got the most important student to teach right in my living room and i wouldn't change it for the world! :)