Learning to Read

It's been really interesting teaching my kiddos to read.  Since the boys were in school through the early grades, I could rely more on the teachers to do their thing and supplement a lot at home.  Both were reading really well coming out of kindergarten because they had an incredible teacher and again, me at home.

The amazing kindergarten teacher moved to Australia of all places, so Melanie had a different teacher.  She didn't do much with reading at all, she walking into first grade she wasn't reading much at all.  That was the year we started homeschooling.  Melanie chose to go to school, but after the first couple weeks, when she came home from school begged me daily to homeschool.  I made her do that for two weeks, and let her know that she wouldn't be bouncing in and out.  If she was coming home, she was home for the year.  She agreed, and we took her out.

It took her longer to get reading to click, but as I've found with each of the girls, all it takes is the right book at the right time and they're hooked.

For Melanie, it was "Adventures with Arnold Lobel" (my favorite story is in the Mouse Tales section called "The Journey").  When she discovered that, she read it over and over and I never had to work with her on reading again.  That girl always has a book or her kindle in her hand.

Carolyn has struggled even longer.  The patterns weren't clicking, and she fought with the same words even after she had read them and written them multiple times.  A few weeks ago I noticed the book "Jack and Janet" at my parents' house, and asked if I could borrow it to see if she would be interested.  Once she got started, she dug right in and would go hide for an hour working through the stories.  Hooray!  The magic book!  Wanting it to continue, I went online and researched other books in the series, ordered the next two plus one a few books earlier for Erin (who has been picking up reading pretty easily).  While Carolyn has been waiting for the next one to arrive, she took over "Adventures with Arnold Lobel" and finished that one the day before "Up and Away" arrived.  She is now happily working her way through that one and doing really well.  I still think there may be dyslexia or something else there, but it's so wonderful that things are clicking for her.

When the easier one, "Tip and Mitten," arrived for Erin yesterday, I told her we could check and see if she was ready for it.  Before I could sit down with her, she parked herself and read the first two pages.  Super proud of herself, she read them to me.  Same story as Carolyn, she's been hiding herself away working her way through the book.  I've had her read portions here and there, and she's doing fabulous.  While I was ordering the book between that and "Jack and Janet," she walked in to tell me she's done, and asked if she could read it again.  Of course!

These older learning-to-read books are actually really good ones.  The stories are so sweet - most based around a family and the situations they run into together.