Reading Upadate....Baby Steps and Success

At a loss for how to get Collin engaged when reading books so he can move to the next level, I called our local bookstore to see what books she might recommend.  She said she would pull a few that should be at his current level and the level he should be at by the end of the school year for him to look through.  The plan would be that we would casually walk in the store, have him sit at a table and flip through some of the books.  We would not be in a rush so he could take his time looking through the books. 


When we arrived, I sat away from him and the lady so he could focus on her and her sweet voice as she was explaining the books she pulled for him to look through.  She explained there was no pressure if he did not like any of them.  She could keep looking until he found one he thought he might like.  After about 5 minutes of looking at the titles, he selected Dog Man which is about a creature that had a dog head on a man's body.  This creature is a cop.  He sat there and read about 10 pages without stopping, getting distracted or asking when we would leave. 

When I could see that he was getting to a stopping point, I asked him about the other books and if he thought he would like any of the other ones.  He flipped through some of them and selected Sherlock Sam and the Missing Heirloom in Katong. 

I gave money for Collin to walk to the checkout counter and buy the two books.  We needed to leave to head to golf which was less than 10 minutes away.  As I was parking, I was so shocked to look back and see this:

What?  Collin was reading on his own without me asking?  Where did my kid go? 


He played an hour of golf, we grabbed dinner on the way home and then got comfy before he started some school work.  He did that for about 30 minutes and then he wanted to read some more.  He asked me to get one of my books and sit with him which I did.  I assumed we would do this for 20 minutes or so.  Nope!  We read for over an hour.  Collin ended up reading all 231 pages of Dog Man and asked when we could get the next book in the series.