Post #3318127

Got some thoughts on reading and weird things that leapt out at me when I was listening to that Sold A Story podcast and I guess I need to do a thread or a post about that at some point 'cause not only do I have OPINIONS like any middle aged Man On The Internet, I might actually have some concrete nuts-and-bolts Suggestions lol I'm KINDA WEIRDED OUT by the fact that I have a blog and it's sort of this, invitation to bang on about shit as though I'm an expert on it for thousands and thousands of words rather than shitposting on fedi But like, for now: 🦝 When I go and visit my family in England, my local ASDA in a dilapidated working class town in the North has a whole AISLE of tat magazines for 3 to 5 year olds, and I see no such aisle in American grocery stores because the expectation is that teachers teach the kids to read Literally From Scratch 🦝 Between The Lions (an American puppet show about reading with lions who live in a library) is really good. REALLY good. It's meant to be watched with parents, there's jokes that go over the kids' heads and that's on purpose, it's entertaining for adults and it works great as a show to watch with dinner, it's honestly really really good, it's on internet archive 🦝 The SPUDGER is an EXCELLENT teaching-a-baby-to-read tool. See when you're reading to someone very very tiny, you'll wanna run your finger underneath each word as you're saying it, but your finger is TOO BLUNT to be used as an actual Pointing Device, it can only point towards like four or five letters at a time. But you don't want anything too pointy because the kid will grab it and poke themselves with it. So what you do is you get one of those spudgers that's a sharp point on one end (like for dip switches and poking at those ribbon cable flaps etc) and a wide flat lad for levering on the other, and you get some sandpaper and you just knock off that sharp point. Get it to where you can still point to individual letters but the end is rounded about as much as a ballpoint pen (you can also use an actual ballpoint pen if you want your books and child to be covered in pen). Then you've got several tools: pointer for individual letters, wide end for short words, the whole thing turned sideways for covering up lines as you reveal them, and it's a bookmark too. Plus it still works as a spudger. Also makes a good tickling stick for feet. Damn I need a picture of this spudger don't I