This week, we started going back to 100% analog books at bedtime for the boy and I feel good about it. He’s almost 5, and we’ve read to him nearly every night of his life since before he was able to understand what was going on.

It started out as 3-4 children’s books. We ran out of material after a while, so Libby (library app) and Amazon Kids+ filled in the gaps. But over the last 6 months or so, he’s been wanting more and more to watch books read from content creators on YouTube. We’d still read him a book or two, but then allow him to watch books being read on YouTube Kids.

The great thing is, he somewhat surprisingly didn’t complain when we cut out the iPad. It seemed pretty harmless, but we agreed it was basically too much like watching cartoons. The readers often have too much commentary, or act out the characters in the books. He also wasn’t getting as much explanation or oversight. It took away the fundamental purpose of reading.

His preschool teachers say he’s ahead of where he should be, doing work of kindergartners and a little bit of first grade work. We don’t push him too hard on the learning to read and write, but I want to make sure he stays interested and engaged. It will come.

Tonight I read him four books, two of which were longer. I spent more time asking him questions and sounding out some of the words, all the while pointing to each word as I read them. He was really interested, and asked a lot of questions about the meanings of words. It was just nice to have more one on one closeness with him.