Reading: Halfway Through Our Lessons

This is one of those "grandparent posts" that is probably interesting only if you're closely related to our sweet firstborn boy.

John is progressing through "Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons." I've slowed down, no longer doing a lesson seven days per week. Then I slowed down even more because I noticed that John hit a plateau (didn't you forewarn me about that, friend Sarah?). Interestingly, it wasn't that John couldn't understand the work, but I think he was finding it overwhelming as the number of exception words accumulated and the daily story assignments got longer (the longest so far being 52 words). So, then I began breaking his lessons in half and simply telling him that we would be doing only one half of a lesson calmed him right down, such that he read through them easily instead of balking, being silly, and trying to distract me.

I am finding it so interesting to be learning how to teach for the first time, and learning how to teach this particular child of mine. Today I thought I'd give John a confidence boost but getting down one of our beautiful, hardbound readers: "First Steps" (Grade 1 Preprimer). I thought he'd like discovering that he could read A Real Book. (And I read the first story and knew he knew all the sounds and could read all the words.)

However, John stubbornly balked and went straight into his pattern of "I don't know." He didn't know the sounds letters made, he couldn't sound out words, and he tried every behavior he could to distract me. He told me, "God gave me a bad brain." And all this in the face of words and sounds which he already knows, when he's reading more advanced stories in TYCTR! I always knew he was a perfectionist and that that would have paralyzing tendencies (ask me how I know about these emotions!) and now I'm seeing how that plays out in school learning.

I already discovered one way through John's habit of "not knowing." His self-perception is that he must not know the answer, even though I know he does. So, for example, when doing our reading, I'll point to a word and he instantly says, "I don't know." I used to engage with that, tell him that he did know, give him hints, blah blah blah, while he argued that he didn't know. Then I learned simply not to acknowledge his saying that he didn't know, and I'd keep my finger pointed at the word and wait with quiet expectation (no sternness, no meanness, just quietly giving him space). And almost inevitably, John would pause a moment and tell me the word, beautifully and easily like I knew he could.

So, we continue onward with our reading lessons, going at a slightly slower space and sprinkling in lots more fun stuff to learn: animals, nature, math, great songs, saints . . .