Review of our Language Arts Goals

I'm thinking now is a good time to review my beginning of the year goals in the language arts department. Here they are...

*Give my kids a "reason" to write.
I'm looking for pen-pals...children and/or adults...international and domestic.
I'm also thinking that I will start encouraging them to blog a few times a week and I will purchase a couple of magnetic poetry sets (J loves to play with these at the library).

*Give my kids a "reason" to read.

I don't know how to accomplish this yet outside of external rewards. They love being read to and we are constantly listening to books on tape but they would rather do about anything rather than read on their own. So I'm thinking I'm going to have to set up some kind of system that will reward them for reading X number of books.

I think we're doing better on writing, though we have a ways to go. We've yet to find a pen-pal (any suggestions?) but the boys have written thank you notes or notes of encouragement to various people about once week. As for blogging it hasn't happened nearly as often as I'd originally planned...we'll see what happens.

We're doing a lot better with reading!!

W is reading the Tomo series on his own time and loving it. He's also picked up Dairy of a Wimpy Kid and is contemplating reading that as well. His reading endurance is way up and he can now read aloud for 20 minutes or more with out feeling worn out! Hooray!!!

J reads aloud to me when I make him and "pretends" to read chapter books on his own time. I feel satisfied with these efforts for now. He's a good reader who hasn't struggled at all like his brother, so I'm hoping a love of reading will come eventually and I'm not worried about pushing it.

We are working on reading quietly for 15 full minutes at a time. It's hard for J because he's so squirmy and get distracted so easily but I think it is a worthwhile goal. There are times in life for quiet and learning self control is a good thing. :) Besides, I told them that when we reach our goal the first time I will take them to Chuck E. Cheese! (What boy can resist that?)

Have a blessed day,