We Don’t Want to Read with Mommy, She’s Boring

My kids love reading with me. I make books come alive.

Photo by Kamaji Ogino from Pexels

Reading with me is an interactive experience for our kids.

I give characters different voices. I ad-lib rhyming words into the text. Sometimes I change a letter or use a sound repeatedly, to hear them squeal in delight ‘Daddy, that’s not what it says.’

I love watching my children fall in love with books and their imaginations and curiosity piqued.

I have a four-year-old son and a seven-year-old daughter. Sonali loves to read with me. I read hours to her every week.

And now she’s in second grade and learning how to read on her own. Valentine is just beginning to understand words and his vocabulary grows daily.

I was raised in the United States, and I have always loved words and language.

My wife conversely is an Indian immigrant. Sasmita immigrated to the US in 2012 to marry me.

English is not her mother tongue. She learned English as a teen in a Catholic convent in South India. She also speaks five other languages.

I’m a native English speaker, with a large vocabulary, and grew up surrounded by written and spoken English. My father has written seven books about the…