This is a video of Dominick reading one of his books.
As a first grade teacher, I can not stress the importance of reading to your children every single day. It increases their vocabulary, teaches them comprehension skills, instills a love of reading, teaches them what fluent reading sounds like, helps them understand plot, characters, problem, solution, and that every story has a beginning, middle and end...all by simply reading stories to them (not teaching or explaining anything-just reading). I can not even begin to tell you all the things Dominick has learned from us reading to him daily his entire little life. He can tell me the characters of the story, the speaker (narrator) of the story, he has picked up on many words that I do not normally use in my vocabulary, he can read (recite) all the stories I read to him (which is the beginning stages of reading), he can can tell me the problem from the story, etc. It is really amazing to see the skills he has that many of my first graders do not have when starting the school year. It is truly AMAZING in my eyes!!! So parents, pleeeaaase take that extra 15 minutes each night to read to your little ones! It is great family time and they learn so much from it.
