My Ravenous Little Reader

Okay, peeps.

Sometimes as a parent, it feels impossible to see the forest through the trees.

Every hour and every day that’s filled with challenges, laborious tasks or hard battles can really wear you down. And make you feel like you’re crawling toward a mirage of a finish line that keeps moving farther and farther out of reach.

This feeling of treading water and getting nowhere, of being deep in the weeds without poking your head up, can be associated with any number of issues or events related to parenting. But it can feel especially heavy when it’s related to educational milestones of your kiddos—at least from my personal experience.

But, never fear! There is hope (I pinky promise swear).

Whenever I feel down about a particular phase of parenting I’m navigating, or really burdened by a challenge I’m witnessing one of my kiddos face, I remind myself of the strong but simple truth: this too, shall pass.

And it absolutely will.

Nothing in life remains stagnant.

There is a season for everything. 

We are constantly growing and evolving as humans.

And progress might feel like squeezing water from a rock. Or beating your head against a wall. Or taking two steps forward and three steps back.

But…progress might also feel slow for eons, and then burst forward in leaps and bounds.

And that’s exactly what we’re witnessing right now with Chicklet and her reading fluency. :)

Our beloved Chicklet’s path to reading had been as unique as every thought and bit of imagination in that beautiful brain of hers.

And it hasn’t been easy—at all.

It’s taken a village to give her the encouragement and support that’s she’s needed, but in the end, the success she’s now experiencing is 100% her own. And it makes me want to burst with pride.

At the start of this school year, she was still often claiming some variation of not being able to read, and there is no way, no how that’s accurate today!

About a month ago, the hubby and I—and her teachers—noticed the most amazing fluency burst, and the result is her nose in a book every dang day. :)







Her stories are often so consuming for her that we have to demand she close a book before she tumbles down the stairs or runs into a wall or lets her dinner get cold. And I’d love to say those little warnings make me want to pull my hair out, but they really just make me want to sing The Hallelujah Chorus. :)





For those (like me!) who might be thinking ahead to the summer months and ways to keep kiddos interested in reading of any kind, I’ve got nothing but praise for graphic novels at the moment—and oodles of teachers, our school librarian, and reading specialists agree!

These types of books often provide a perfectly palatable bit of text alongside really engaging visuals, and there are so many top notch options out there at the moment. We’ve recently hit the absolute jackpot with some series our household is loving.

This one is the BEST and most engaging for Chicklet. She gets a major kick out of them and can often be heard giggling over certain bits.

And this one is a related spin-off series…




And this one is a really fun mystery-solving one…





I know it will be a major challenge to keep my kiddos at their educational best over the summer—as it is every June & July. 

But seeing them each end their school year on positive note gives me just the boost I need to put in the effort and craft the “lesson plans” that will power them through and avoid that summer slide.

It’s a never-ending job, keeping these kiddos engaged and growing and mentally challenged, but, MAN, are the rewards soooooo worth it.

Long. Love. READING!!!

And on that note…off to read my own book ;)

Over and out.