Steph and I didn’t want to put pressure on our kids to read until they were ready, but I can tell you that we definitely did everything we could to get them ready. We’ve read to them since they were babies, but never pushed a formal program or system. As an elementary school principal and former primary grade (early literacy) teacher I know the importance of foundational reading skills; but, we sort of said, if they learn on their own, cool. If they take their time, also cool (caveat: I stressed at every milestone)!!!

I honestly didn’t expect much in terms of reading progress before kindergarten because or the pandemic thing. Oliver had learned his letters and some sound combinations in preschool, but nothing was really clicking right away (except how to hit a baseball a ton and how to juke out a defensive back with the football in his hand). Ollie loved reading with us, but he just wasn’t super interested in reading on his own for fun. The first months of kindergarten were the same.

Then he checked out a book on Aaron Judge. You know MVP, AL HOME RUN KING… that Aaron Judge?  Oliver is a sports fanatic. He is IN LOVE WITH BASEBALL and IN LOVE WITH THE NEW YORK YANKEES. Like so many kids his age, Aaron Judge is his favorite. As soon as we read that book together… it all started coming together. He was starting to work his way through books . Don’t get me wrong he was reading Pokémon books, but this Aaron Judge book helped him turn the corner and led to more interest in short stories and even longer ones that were not focused on “Judgie” as Oliver calls him. By the second or third time through the book, he’d pretty much memorized it which lead to reading other books more fluently with more confidence.

Pretty soon he was picking up books like Mo Willems’ Elephant and Piggie and begging to start the Harry Potter series with Jax and I. However, each night since he first picked up Baseball Superstar’s: Aaron Judge, he has become a Superstar himself… a Superstar Reader. 

Thanks “Judgie” for inspiring my little slugger to read!!!