Reading and Boys

I never thought that J-jo would start learning to read as early as Bear did.  It took me by surprise when he did. That said, he is not at all like his sister in how he learns.  Bear would have been content to sit and sound out words for much longer than I have found to be the case with J-jo.

 (This photo shows the type of worksheet I am writing of and shows how the little word strips - especially on the sheet on the left - look like bandaids, or would if you were two.)

When J-jo sits at his table, he will read one word. After that one word, I lose him.  He starts talking. He'll get enthused by the two "m's" in "mom"and go on and on about that.  Then he'll decide that the slips of paper (the ones with the words he's supposed to be reading) look like bandaids and that he needs one, no make that two, on his boo-boo.  A count of all the boo-boos is now in order. Meanwhile, I am getting quite impatient (silently, inside my head) and wondering how to get him back on track.  Then it hits me.

He's a boy.

Boys are active (or so the stereotype goes).

Get him moving.

I sweep up all the little word "bandaids" and start being all excited about a new game we're going to play.  A fun running game.  I sweep up the glue stick and the sheet with the pictures of the words he "needs" to read. I place all the words at one end of the hall and then sit with the sheet of pictures and the gluestick in my bedroom. And my little boy gleefully runs from me to the words, places his "bandaid" on his forehead, holding it there while he runs right back to me and then he reads his word. Flawlessly. He glues it down and runs for the next one.  It took less time to finish the sheet than it did to read that  one word at his table.

 

Horribly bad picture; he was running way too fast and I didn't have the flash on, but just to show you how much fun he had. He's standing in front of the wall that used to be a half wall before the renovation and we haven't gotten around to painting it yet!