Reading in the dark

I had a GREAT time with my child the other night.

We were on our way to bed the other night, and it was time to read books, when my child (who is afraid of the dark) got the BRILLIANT idea that we should read in the dark!

We pulled out some glow in the dark sticks which we seem to always have in the house, and some books that were primarily black and white, and began to read.

One of the books we had chosen was "One Cool Friend" written by Toni Buzzeo and illustrated by David Small.  This was a book we had randomly chosen from the picture book section of our local library, and is a Caldecott Medal Honor book for the year 2013.   

 (http://thereisabookforthat.files.wordpress.com/2012/04/cover-one-cool-friend.jpg)

As we sat on our bed, my children and I took out our brand new glow in the dark sticks, snapped their outer, plastic covers, and shook them apart.  Then we proceed to wait until they glowed, and then the excitement began.

(http://www.glowwithus.com/images/206.jpg)

Using the glow in the dark sticks we traced the words on the page and used the sticks to also follow along.  As we read the book we used the glow in the dark sticks like a flashlight to look at the pictures and images on the pages as well and talked about what we could and could not see easily on the page with the limited, colorful light.

There was some frustration on the part of both me and my kids.  We traded around the glow in the dark sticks a few times, and tried out different colors that we discovered could illuminate better light than others. The trading of the sticks and the alteration of the colors gave us a chance to deal with sharing, feelings, discovering colors, and a good discussion about the use of light and dark.  

For a lot of parents the interpretation of this experience would be very different than it might be for me.  As I watched my children deal with the experience of reading a book in the dark, with only  the light of a glow in the dark stick, I realized I was truly giving them a fun and meaningful sensory experience.  An experience that I later realized could help them learn to cope with their fear of the dark, their anxiety and worry about reading, and the actual sensation of teaching their eyes to see in the dark, when that has previously frightened them.  

I can only imagine the synapses that were working in their minds, and perhaps for the first time ever in their young lives.  Thankfully the story was a HUGE hit, and we loved the HILARIOUS ending, and the story kept their attention the entire time and made them WANT to finish which for them meant coping with the discomfort of having a new sensory experience that they had not previously had before in their young lives.

The response afterwards from both of my children was that they loved reading it in the dark, and wanted to do it again.  I'm proud of my young children, and excited for the new memories we made as a family by taking the chance to leap into the dark, and read!