Reading Basics

The kindergarten entry process has made me think a lot about Nicholas and reading.

I remember learning to read. We rented an RV and drove to Canada for our summer vacation, and I spent most of the trip on the floor of the moving vehicle with McGuffey's Reader. Not because anyone was making me, but because I wanted to. I asked my parents for the sounds, but otherwise I taught myself to read. I don't remember struggling at all. I was four.

I really, really, really wish something like this would happen to Nick. Instead, I have been weeding out the super simple books, the ones with just a few words repeated over and over again, and trying to get him to read them to me, to sound out the words. The problem is, Nathan usually jumps in with the answer before I can coax Nick into saying... anything.

Nick knows his letters. He can even tell me the sounds each letter makes. But by the time we get through three different sounds he forgets what the first sound was, and even when he says all three sounds together (Duh, Ahh, Guh) he has a hard time making them into a word (DOG).

Yesterday night Nicholas cried as I tried to get him to read "What Does George Like." He sobbed. "But I can't read and I don't want to! You read it to me!" And I felt my whole soul deflate. A hard time reading means a hard time at school, and I'm failing, I'm failing at the first academic thing I ever have to introduce him to, something important, something he needs, and something that brings me great joy each day of my life. How could this be?

So I made a deal with him. "I'll read it first, and then you can read it to me right after, OK?" The book is only six pages long. Each page has four words. And he did fine. He wasn't reading the words, saying "likes to ride a bike" instead of "likes riding a bike" and things like that. But the point is, HE DID IT.

And more importantly, at lunch he announced that HE would be reading "What Does George Like?" before nap. And he did. And he did it again tonight at bedtime. And each time he's getting more and more confident, and happier with the idea of picking up a book.