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!

Handwriting 101

So, on the spur of a moment thought while driving north on I-17, I swerved across a lane of traffic to exit for Walmart.  Wally’s World… it solves so many of life’s daily issues…. and has the ambiance of the state fair for your viewing pleasure.  My main thought was “cabbage”…. because there are currently two heads of cabbage in the fridge which I keep purchasing because our family eats CCS  (Chinese Chicken Salad) at least once a week.  The dilemma:  no chicken has materialized at the Crosby home for at least three weeks.  Hence, the swerve and the W-Mart run. 

Larisa was with me as we bee-bopped into the friendly world of helpful souls clad in navy shirts and tan pants.  At the Crosby home, there is a magnetic list on the side of the fridge where needed and even wanted grocery items are listed for such a time as this.  Unfortunately, because this was not a premeditated trip, the magnets were still holding the list on said refrigerator. 

So, with my hot pink cell phone, I called home to have one of my sons (whom I taught to read) relay the list to me while I stood in the produce section of WM.  Keeve answered the phone.  He was my easiest non-reading pupil.  Somehow, he just naturally READ….. and I helped a bit.  There were only four items on the list… he slowly read, “lard, …. um… I can’t read that one…. um…. A-C-E-T-A-M-I….”  “Acetaminophen,” I interrupted his spelling bee recitation.  “OK, yeah…. top ramen…. Mom, I really can’t read the other one.”  Yes, I had written it myself.  I remember writing it… but I couldn’t remember what it was.  So I asked him to spell it.  “Um….. g…v…  your writing is really messy on this word.”  “Yeah, yeah, keep spelling, please.”   “OK, Um… g… v.. i…h..t…e..m.  That’s what it looks like, mom.”  

“Is Austin right there?  Can you please have him read it?” While he was locating his brother, I found a scratch piece of paper in my purse and wrote down GVIHTEM to try and figure out what it was that I had written so messily.  Larisa suggested, “Write it fast and then squint to read it.”  hahahaha  I did, but it didn’t help.  Aus came to save the day… well, sort of.  “Mom, I can’t read what you wrote.”  “Then please spell it, son.”   “OK, GVLTEM.”   “Thank you, see you later,” I replied.    I gave up at that point and went to find lard, pills and noodles.

I couldn’t wait to get home to read my messy handwriting.  Ok, I laughed… the word they spelled over and over was the FIRST word of a double word item on the list…. even if they couldn’t read the first word, the second word was CRACKERS!  And the first word started with a G…. graham crackers, of course!  And my writing wasn’t THAT bad.  I could read it.  Sheesh.