Thanks for all the positive feedback. For the record, we read aloud as a family almost every night and my wife takes the kids to the library about once a week. They love it. Over the past year and a half, we have read ALL the Laura Ingalls Wilder books, a bunch of the Judy Blumes (those featuring Fudge along with some others), a few Beverly Cleary books and 4 of the Harry Potters. She loves big narrative books. What we realized just recently, though, is that this summer she was deferring to us reading these chapter books as a way to not have to wrestle with reading on her own. So, we are now trying to refocus on much shorter, simpler books and having her read to us. Its still very challenging for her and as I did a little more research about different reading issues, I see a lot of the common challenges present in her.
- Pronouncing new words and remembering them
- Breaking words apart into sounds
- Blending sounds together to make words (this and the above are getting easier of late)
- Can't remember words; sounds out the same word every time it occurs on the page (this is so distinct with her. Even if it was one or two words earlier, she just can’t make that connection that it’s the same word with the same pronunciation)
- Frequently guesses at unknown words rather than sounding them out (when she reads to us, she often says every word as a question, looking to us for approval. I have been encouraging her to just read and jump in and don’t worry if its wrong or right - just take a stab at it)
I think it will ultimately be fine. I was one of those kids who had a love/hate relationship with reading. I had very high comprehension, but reading was (and to a certain extent still is) an exhausting enterprise. Recently my brother was describing some dynamic my nephew has where it is hard to focus on the line of text because your eyes are darting all over the page, being attracted to other words and mixing up the order of things. The field of words on a page is just too stimulating for some, making it hard to filter out in order to read. Once he described this, I realized “oh my gosh! That’s exactly what I feel like!” So, I probably have been wrestling with a similar challenge myself.
Anyway, we have engaged the school and are doing more reading at home and really trying to prop up her self-esteem which I think is critical to having the drive to continue working on the reading and not be discouraged. I’m just becoming aware of the possibility that we may need to seek some additional assistance or develop an alternative plan to get her up to speed.
I appreciate everyone’s input!
Holy buckets kids seem expensive. Why in the world would you willingly create a black-hole for money? We make more than the US average but I can not imagine how we would afford kids and continue to save for the future.
This made me laugh. Children are often not a “logical” decision so that’s part of it. A lot of emotion and "unexpected developments" are tied up with reproduction. Also, having kids IS a type of investment in the future – a future beyond your lifetime as they carry forth the values and experiences you provided. Its not monetary in nature, but still an investment of time, energy, values, etc. and I think a little of what
Ursus was getting at in not being bored or alone (having cared for three dead and one dying parent, I see the value of having someone to deal with your crap). For me, I don’t have a lot of other plans for my money, so I figure the kids are the best investment anyway. But its not for everyone. I forgo a lot of things I might otherwise indulge. But then I get more out of kids than any device or experience or “thing” I can imagine. Plus the cost of children gets spread out over quite a long time.
But again, I think very few people do a cost-benefit analysis on children. If we all lived on farms, the payoff would be simpler to conceptualize - free labor!
". "Sir" and "Ma'am" was expected, and we were never permitted to refer to Mom using a pronoun.
