A Giant Leap Forward

Reading has not come without its share of battles and tears for my son.  Last year, he truly HATED to read and it was such a struggle for us.  I at times found myself wondering if I was really meeting his needs by homeschooling.  Part of me kept telling myself, “He is a boy.  He’ll get it, it just takes time.  Don’t worry.”  But another part said, “Am I doing a good enough job?  Should I push more?  Should I put him in school instead?” 

I tried all sorts of ways to make it more fun (like cramming my 9 month preggo body onto the floor of our closet).  I also started using incentives… like “read 10 books and you get a date with mom.”  (Hello frappuchinos!)  This worked some, but honestly, sometimes 10 books seemed like too loft of a goal.

I then stumbled across a carrot which worked wonderfully.

Gum

He and his sisters got a piece of gum if he read a book that day.  This worked well b/c the girls became instant encouragers… “Have you read your book yet today?  Let’s get our gum!” 

During the summer, I also had a friend whom I respect greatly, who has worked as a reading resource teacher with the county for years, evaluate him for me.  She graciously did and she instilled me with a great dose of confidence that yes, he was doing ok, and she even gave me some pointers for how to help him.

Fast forward 7 months and he is now a reading machine!

This December he brought home a book from the prize box at his tutorial.  It was called “The Wisdom of Solomon” and it was about a little Amish boy named Solomon.  Never in a million years would I have picked that book out for my son.  But, it was a turning point for him.  He was so excited about it.  Truthfully, it was a bit above his reading level, but I figured it couldn’t hurt.  He was thrilled to have his own book and he would pick it up and read it to himself from time to time.  Sure, he didn’t get every word on the page correct, but he did get the basic gist of each chapter. 

A few weeks ago we had a great room rearrangement at the circus (more to come on that in another post).  The girls now share a room and the boys now share a room.  As he was moving in with his little brother, I told him that perhaps since the boys couldn’t really talk as they fall asleep like he did with the girls, he could instead read.  I told him that one really cool thing that Big Kids do is stay up at night reading quietly in bed.  He thought this sounded so exciting.  He grabbed his Solomon book and eagerly got started. 

One night after they had been sharing a room for about a week, he came out after bed to show us that he had finished the book!   The look of pride and glee on his face is one I will treasure always.  Scott and I made a big deal about it and we took a trip to the library a few days later.  He was literally reading in line at the check out, on the way to the car, in the car on the way home….  I found a basket which I put by his bed for him to keep reading books in.  It’s been fun to see him return to the book shelf and pull out books I used to read to him when he was younger, which he now reads to himself.

He is so, so excited and proud about reading that he happily chooses to read as he falls asleep at night, when he wakes up in the morning, and during quiet time in the afternoon.  I found him reading to his sister on the couch today.  He no longer needs incentives.  He now reads for his own pleasure. 

Words can not even begin to describe the joy this brings to me.  Scott and I spent some time in Barnes and Noble last night during our date night.  We love to look around at books at the bookstore.  This time, we also spent considerable time in the Children’s section looking for books for him.  I am beyond excited about the endless possibilities there are for him now that the doors to reading have been opened.  We just learned about the Magic Tree House series and we bought him book 1 as a surprise.  He is already on chapter 6 tonight!