Zo Ee at 3years 4months old. (13th August 2011)
Zo Ee has been known as an avid reader/browser since 10 months old, that's the time we started borrowing books from the library for her. Avid in the sense that she will browse all the 20 library books we borrowed daily, one after another without failed. Before that, she was pretty limited to books we have at home but since we joined the library, her reading horizon exploded. Imagine 12 months later, she has read more than 1000 library books, not once but at least few times/ per book. Now that she has turned 3years 4months old, I'm glad that she still loves reading, in fact is still her first love.
Nowadays, She reads a lot by herself and we only read together during bedtime. During the day time, she has access to books she likes and will spend time reading them by herself. Occasionally, she will come to me for some explanation or to clarify her doubts on a particular page or etc. Basically, Mummy hardly take note about what she is reading everyday at home.
One particular book she has been reading recently is
The Kingfisher book of Funny Poems with over 200 poems in it.
A few of her latest read with Mummy before bedtime are
Yoga
Kingfisher first Thesaurus
Daring Cell defenders (Rebecca L Johnson)
Basically, she decides what she wants to read and she may read the entire book or she may not especially on reference books which consist more than 200 pages each. She most likely will finish reading simple story books whenever she reads one. But has not finished any other story books of 100/200 pages in a go. She reads a few chapters and may read another book etc. The only story book she has finished in a go is Stories to Treasure....many short stories in a book of 200pages. And she did that at 2years 9months old. Most likely, that particular book has bigger printing which makes her reading easier.
Few days ago, On her request, we read about
Kidney Failure; especially on Renal Dialysis. From there, she learned about dehydration and who is at risk and how to prevent it. She also wanted to learn about
Hydronephrosis -blockage of the kidney. So that's how our reading sessions go lately, on a particular topic instead of a particular book.
If I had not mistaken, Zo Ee actually started liking adult version - anatomy book around 2years 9 months old. Not that she will read it everyday but each time she did, she grasped quite a bit of information by herself. For example, last week, Zo Ee asked me while pointing to the picture of a brain,
"Mummy what is this thing called?" When I told her that I'm not sure, she replied without hesitation,
"That's the Thalamus. Yes. That's the Thalamus." Of course, when Mummy went to confirm it, Zo Ee was right, it was indeed the Thalamus - tiny part of the brain. She may not read the entire book during each read of every few weeks but definitely she will not miss any diagrams in it. I also noticed that her each read/visit become longer as she grows older, started with an hour/day. She may read that particular book for an hour for a few times on one particular day or re-read it the next day , then stopped for another few weeks before coming back to this particular book again. That's her style be it reading or activities...always in a cycle.
The other day, she was glued to the tv, watching the
final Voyage of the Atlantis space shuttle and was complaining she didn't want to see the commercial breaks in between. She was so thrilled throughout the show and even clapped and cheered during the lift-off. Another particular program that really interest her is the
first patient with an artificial heart. She watched the whole program, including part of the surgery. These are the latest two programs that captured her 100% interest and she has been talking about it for days. As mentioned earlier, she enjoys watching documentaries, especially on science and making things but these two really stood out from the rest. I could sense that she particularly likes these two.
