Just Another Bump in the Road

I have been noticeably missing from My Sister’s Jar for two months….well, at least I noticed I was missing. We have had another bump in the ever bumpy road of our lives, but we carry on, get back in the driver’s seat and plead for God’s help once again.

It was May when our little Colombian princess was tested at a reading specialist and several (meaning more than 5!) different learning differences were detected. This was an AHA! moment for me as well as a WELL- DUH! moment mixed together. I assumed some of the difficulties were because Nora has only been speaking English for four years. This didn’t seem to apply at all once the road blocks to learning were identified.

I believe I have mentioned on here before some of my frustration teaching my own children who can’t seem to remember what I’ve taught them, and don’t really care that they can’t remember, and just want to go outside and look at clouds and dig in the dirt. I handed over Nora’s math teaching to her two older brothers for several months at the suggestion of our principal, my husband. It saved me from the desire to bang my head on the kitchen table when there was no recall of ANYTHING she could do yesterday.The boys didn’t seem to mind re-teaching carrying, borrowing, multiplying with zeroes over and over and over and over and over again. I did mind. It is a weakness of mine, as a homeschool mom, to want my children to learn and retain and move ahead, especially in phonics, reading and math.

With Austin, now 19, he was shown the letter F for 63 straight days of my ever-loving-homeschool-teaching-journey. He finally read the blinkin’ English language when he was NINE. That’s almost TEN. You know, three years before being a teenager. There weren’t any learning differences. He was just a late reader. (Insert mother justification….) He designed and installed our backyard sprinkler and drip system when he was also nine. He’s a smart kid. I kept the faith that God would touch the brain inside that hard, blonde head… and He did! Thank you, Jesus. It still brings me to tears when I relay the story of the first time in his life when Aus read… anything…it was a sign at Sequoia National Park, “Do not feed the deer!”

Back to the Colombian princess. When I heard the phrase “auditory processing” I wasn’t sure what it meant, so of course I googled it. Lo and behold, and what to my wondering eyes should appear, and good golly why didn’t I remember this… a website popped up of a lady WHOM I KNOW!  Oh yeah, she teaches on learning differences. She gave me great suggestions ten years ago when I was trying to get Austin to read C-A-T without the far-and-away look in his big blue eyes. Here is what I discovered: MAGIC! There were 16 symptoms listed for people who have learning differences in the area of auditory processing. Nora has all 16! WHAT? (I pride myself of being an overachiever too!)

Nora is attending reading classes with a specialist who understands left brain/right brain connections that need to be established. The “reading class” consists of physical activities outside to help cross the mid-line of the brain. School has taken a decidedly different look this year, with WAY more focus on my part, which has introduced me to a new level of exhausted. From 9:00 p.m. to midnight was MY time to get my work done. Now I’m dragging through dinner and looking at the clock longingly at 7:30 p.m. without the energy to get anything done. But God knows what He is doing. None of Nora’s challenges were made apparent until Austin was graduated from high school. The Lord knows what we can handle and what would throw us head over heels into the loony bin, and obviously teaching Austin and Nora (the new way) together was beyond my capabilities. And I am thankful we learned about all this when we did!

So as I start each new day, as a homeschool mom, around 8:30 a.m. or 9:30 a.m., I remind God that these are really His kids, and I need His help once again to leave my bedroom and teach them how to learn, how to love God and how to succeed in life! I could not do this on my own! And that’s a fact, Jack!

4 out of 4… I’m Golden

As it happened, I have completed the task every homeschool mother wonders if she will be capable, able and successful at finishing: teaching your children to read.  My first daughter was subjected to a charter school for kindergarten and grade one (that’s how we say it in Canada… not first grade) and I did not have the joy of teaching her to decipher the alphabet code.  But I figured, HEY!  How hard could it be???  Well, son number one, who followed daughter number one, had a brain that was wired quite the opposite of my first child reader.  She read with ease at five years old.  When my son turned five he was quite proficient at spitting, throwing rocks, yelling and doing everything at the same rate as Speedy Gonzales.  Reading was not on his list of interests….. until he was almost NINE!  Made me wonder if the kid would ever read.  Sheesh!  What good is a teaching certificate if you can’t even teach a kid to sound out three letter words?  Or simply remember the letter F?  Eventually some synapses connected in his overactive brain and he could read.  It happened while we were on a three month sick-leave trip touring national parks on the west side of the United States.  It had nothing to do with me.

Son number two actually read before son number one.  Assuming that this would provoke determination in son number one was completely incorrect on my part.  Son number one read after he had successfully toured Zion, Yosemite, Walnut Canyon, Fort Bowie and 14 other parks, caves and forts.  Had I known the national park tour was a prerequisite to his reading ability, we would have taken the trip three years earlier.  See?  Nothing to do with me.

Last week, I had the joy and privilege of teaching the Colombian princess to read.  She has been diligently learning her English phonograms and we have completed the first 26 of 72.  She asked me in frustration, “When am I ever going to be able to read WORDS?!?”  It was then that I realized she probably could with her vast knowledge of phonograms.  I put three phonogram cards together… c…….a……..t.  She sounded them out three or four times before her eyes popped open and she pronounced in her amazing reading ability, “CAT!”  Then we went through run, ran, hat, dot, hop, up, pop, cup, mop, tip, sip, and, hit, and even jump!  She was so excited she could not stop giggling!  I called for her sister and brothers to come and listen to her READ!  Her dimples were showing the rest of the day! It truly is a joy to see her succeeding by leaps and bounds and she hasn’t even been speaking English for 6 months yet.  It is also a true joy to be able to teach her. 

Back in the day when I taught kindergarten to several classes of German speaking kids, they did learn to read and I was proud of them for learning English and reading…. but nothing compares to it being your own kid who has broken the scribble code and can make sense of the English written language.

Four out of four.  I’m golden!

That Magic Moment

When my son started homeschooling at five-years-old, with me as his highly qualified and trained teacher, I came to the realization that all kids are not created equal.  Some are special.  Some are wild.  Some are funny.  Some are charming.  Some aren’t ready for school even if they are five-years-old.  I’m quite the determined individual and figured that I would do just fine teaching the children God gave me.  After several months of working on the letter F…. without any retention or even slight recognition… I realized my son was not ready to read (or name letters.)  Just for curiosity’s sake, I counted in my daily planner the number of days I had shown him the letter F.  It was 62.  It was like the letter F was new every morning…. just like God’s mercy.  Not good if your goal is reading before grade eight. 

We took a year off from trying to name the letter F.  It was a fun year of frivolity and favorite games.  We played football and frisbee and had foot races.  Then when my son was seven, I showed him this funny squiggly mark with two lines and told him that it was the letter F.  He said, “F”.  It made my heart glad.  The next day…. without me telling him… he pointed and said “F”.  :o)  See!  My teaching certificate was working its wonders.  That year he slowly learned the sounds the letters make…. uncompromisingly slowly.  But reading the letters when they were all lined up was foreign to him.  I diligently pressed on.  We sounded out every Bob book written.  I even made sight word flashcards with neatly formed letters….. but retention was out of our grasp.

When my son was nine, my husband was injured and had four months off work while his Achille’s Tendon healed inside a large black boot.  We took advantage of the time off and travelled the Western USA and visited 18 National Parks.  Since it was January through April, we did take our math books along with us in the van and worked our numbers on cookie sheets while we travelled.  Carschool!  I read aloud to the children and we listened to many books on tape: Rascal, Misty of Chincoteague, and The Twits.  Great pieces of literature that held our interest and kept us spellbound for hours.  But we did not do reading, or phonics or sight-word flashcards.  I needed a break too for goodness sake. 

We arrived home from that trip and to my surprise, delight and utter joy, my nine-year-old son could read.  Maybe he hit his head on a stalactite in New Mexico…. frankly, I don’t know what happened, nor do I care.  But something clicked, he could read… and it had nothing to do with me or my outstanding teaching ability.  I wondered how many hours I wasted on the letter F.

So my advice to homeschooling mothers with non-readers is this: hike into some caves, drive through some trees, fish in streams, count cacti arms, watch sage brush blow through fort ruins and climb a few ladders to cave dwellings.  It worked for me and my son.