A First!

It finally happened!  The day I've been hoping for!  The day that would bear witness of Brandt's reading progress.  Tonight, as we do every night, I read to Brandt and we said prayers, I kissed him goodnight and left his room.  A few minutes later, Blythe called Kent up and when he returned, he saw that Brandt's light was on again.  When Kent poked his head in, Brandt said, "I'm not ready to go to sleep yet.  I want to keep reading."

I WANT TO KEEP READING!!!!!

On his own, Brandt wanted to keep reading!  Oh, how this makes my heart glow!  Brandt has struggled with his reading, and we have been at a loss as to know why.  He loves it when we read to him, something we have done from day one, and he loves stories.  We have done everything anyone has ever said to help a child be a good reader, but Brandt has not performed well on his reading tests.  We recently discovered that his eyes are not working completely in tandem and have begun doing vision therapy once a week (two weeks now).  He has been resistant to reading alone, and frequently we have had to fight to get him to read aloud to us.

But all that is changing.  Lately, he has been doing his 20-30 minutes of reading without complaint, and even without our sitting next to him, and tonight, he wants to stay up late reading.  Reading!  Late!  I'm so happy I could cry.

As a side note, Brandt wanted to stay up reading Dirty Bertie.  Heidi Tanner gave us three Dirty Bertie books, part of a many-volumed series about a fairy dirty, disgusting little boy named Bertie.  They have great titles like Dirty Bertie: Worms and Dirty Bertie: Fleas and Dirty Bertie: Pants.  Brandt loves them.  They make him laugh out loud and feel compelled to share parts with us.  Isn't that wonderful?!  He wants to read bits to us.  Again, mucho glowing heart.  I ordered him a set of 15 books we didn't have, and they arrived today.  He's been reading them all evening, and now, into the night.  I think I'll write the authors, David Roberts and Alan MacDonald, a thank you note, expressing my gratitude that they've written such disgustingly appealing books for our boy.