Getting a handle on what to teach James

Yesterday I came across this great little blog post: The future of the library

It really made me think, while I really want James to just be happy, and excel in areas where he enjoys what he is doing, what tools can I provide him to help with that? The biggest worry I have over him is his reading, but I sometimes think that is because he just hasn't found something he wants to read yet.

But this article made me think about some new tools I can teach him over the summer (or he can teach himself) that will help him, and get him to read at the same time. The thing is he loves to work on the computer, albeit mostly playing games, but he also likes to browse around YouTube etc. for Lego stuff and Star Wars stuff. This article has inspired me to try to find some time to sit down with James and start teaching him some things about researching the web. That way he can get to places where he really find what he is interested in, and the by product will be reading, lots of it. I know that an awful lot of my reading when I was his age was history books because I wanted to learn more about all the little army men I was playing with.

In addition I will get a good kids typing program that he can work with, one that will make a game out of it, to teach him to type. Because if he is going to spend as much time on the computer going forward as I expect he will, typing will become an essential skill.

That's my latest plan for the summer for James: turn him into an internet research hound, and learn to type.