Thankfulness that my kids love books

This morning just before leaving for church I peeked into my kids' room and I saw them looking at their books. I love this scene! I'm thankful that that they love books!

When I fist started teaching elementary school I fell in love with teaching reading! I think it's awesome to watch kids make connections and become independent readers! Once they can read, a whole new world is open to them for learning all kids of things.


I have really looked forward to teaching my kids how to read. I've been eager to see them start to sound out words and become independent readers. Maybe other people don't dream of watching their kids obtain the skills of reading, but I do!

I think it's interesting that my kids started to gain some of the emergent reading skills before they went to Arabic preschool. Now they're learning Arabic letters and vowels. Joseph is sounding out some words in Arabic! We've put English reading on the back burner for a little while, but he's still interested in English letters.

God always seems to work things out in my life differently than I would expect. I have my master's degree in Elementary Reading and Literacy and there are lots of strategies for teaching reading that I have been excited to use with my kids. Since they're learning Arabic letters along with English letters things are different. I'm always second guessing how I'm teaching them.

I'm so thankful that they have this opportunity to learn Arabic. It's just that their path of learning how to read is different than I would have anticipated! It makes me depend on the Lord even more than leaning on my education. Obviously, that's just how God wants it! I need to keep my eyes fixed on Christ in every area of my life, even teaching my kids literacy!