Pre-K Reading 8/27/25 - I Love a Kid who knows What they Want

Had a great day reading with the kids today! The students were eager for a turn to read with me which I love to see.

I brought two I Spy books with me: I Spy From A-Z! and I Spy Things that Go!. I thought for sure that these books would be a hit today, but as usual, the kids surprised me 😊

In both books the reader is presented with pictures of objects and the reader’s job is to find the object that starts with a particular letter. So, to do well with these books a reader must know not only the names of things, but also the letter (or sound) that it starts with. This proved to be a little bit ahead of where most of the students are now at the beginning of the Pre-K year. We did have a fun time reading these books (with a little extra help from me) and each time we got the word right, we did a high five, which the kids enjoyed. After today’s experience, I will hold off on bringing in these books until Spring. It’s amazing to see how much progress happens between now and then!

There was a new student in class today… I’ll call her Bailey (I never use real names in my blog). She is smart as a whip and knows what she wants. She looked at the I Spy books and waved them away. “I don’t want those”, she said decidedly. After looking through my book bag, she first chose Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See?, and then she told me (actually, she asked me very politely) how she would like to read them. She asked me to read a line (and I would follow the words with my finger as I read them), and then she would read the line back to me (pointing at the words as she read them). She did amazingly well! You can tell that she hasn’t learned to read quite yet, but she was picking it up super quick! Kids can be amazing that way when they really want to learn something. We also read Chicka Chicka Boom Boom in the same manor.

The other very important item in my book bag today got dropped off at the front office as I walked in… and that was snacks. There are some students that show up to school without having breakfast. It’s very hard to behave and learn when you’re hungry, so the school likes to provide snacks for the kids that need them. Sometimes, students go home with a snack too and sadly, that may be all they have to eat that evening. The whole school community contributes to the snack bin throughout the year. I try to purchase snack bars that have lots of protein and are gluten-free if I can find them on sale. Today, I had to settle for just ‘on sale’. I try to contribute to the bin at least once per month.