With my background in primary and special needs teaching, and my current role as English subject leader on a Primary PGCE, I see reading and a love of books as fundamental. Small LP loves narrative and visuals- he much prefers watching a DVD or cartoons on YouTube. He has one book that he absolutely adores at @Librarypigg’s place: Goodnight Digger by Michelle Robinson (see photo above). I bought it for him in October, and @Librarypigg has read it at least 3 times every week and every other Saturday since- every night Small LP is with him, in other words.

Coincidentally to @Librarypigg moving, we talked about how Small LP throws things over his shoulder when he’s looking for something: most of his DVDs have cracked or broken cases, and many of them jump because of this. He often sweeps things off shelves or pulls them out of cupboards, and has destroyed a lot of things at his mum’s flat. We want him to take better care of things, and when @Librarypigg mentioned how Small LP used to be able to recognise DVDs and videos from logos, it occured to me that he may be throwing them to find the one he wants to watch.

So I arranged his books on the shelf as above. This weekend, he found books that he has never shown any interest in and brought them to me to read (lovely, but not necessarily at 7am…) I read him Mr Pusskins by Sam Lloyd, Thomas the Tank Engine’s Big Word Book and Goldilocks and the Three Bears. I attempted his school reading book, but he wasn’t very interested. So when we move in together, I think we’ll need to think about storage for his toys, DVDs and books so he can see what he has, and this may mean limiting what he can access all at once. It’s fascinating to try to see the world through his eyes, and to notice changes and developments in him.