Reading

Gosh, I love watching my kids learn to read.

With Kori it happened so fast that I wasn't aware of the intricate parts of the process. It all seemed pretty amazing. One day she was looking at books. Two week of Montessori and she was reading chapter books.

With Raiden, I'm relishing the process.

Perhaps I should mention that the best method that seems to work with him would be the 'Benign Neglect' way. I'm neglecting him in order to teach him to read. How's that for cutting-edge??

Recently, Rai's been attempting the silent-reading-to-himself. With me purposely neglecting to promptly join him at bedtime (see,that's me ignoring the little hellion) for stories has meant that he finds himself laying there, alone, with books. I save his favorite reads for bedtime, so he's pretty excited to read at that time of day. He finds himself browsing his current selection and he's discovered that this reading thing isn't so hard at all.

Previous to this new development on the Independent Reading spectrum, Rai's been successfully following along as I read aloud. He was excited to learn he could do this, because his first attempts to do so were failing dismally. I said nothing, but I did explain that his brain was learning to read and it could only handle one step at a time. I pointed out that he was making great strides at reading instructions aloud from his workbooks just now, so perhaps his brain was just busy with that and when it wasn't so busy, the following-along-during-read-aloud would fall into place in it's own time.

And whatdayaknow...shazam. It happened. He's following along for the last month or so with no effort at all. He even picks up where I begin reading again after we stop to discuss a passage.

Then there was a little blip where I had to be careful how long I let him look at books before I arrived to read. He was trying to read to himself, he got all the words, yet he couldn't get the comprehension. He was frustrated. We had a short discussion one night where I explained that he was making leaps and bounds of progress and how proud I was of him. I told him that once his hard-working brain was used to reading the words in his mind, the understanding would come.

And here we are. He is proud to point out to me the parts of books that he's read. To himself. All alone. We were reading a soccer skills book tonight. I was instructed to read the section on 'Goalkeeping Skills'. I'd read and he'd say, "You. That's what it said last night when I read it."

Did I mention that it's so very cool to watch your kids learn to do new stuff...and enjoy it? I'd have another one just to watch him/her learn to read. And walk. I like the learning to walk, too.