Thursday, October 2, 2008

When is he going to school? he can't read!

this is the message I hear from my mother. she is so against the kids being home. She can't imagine that this is better for the kids. Ironically my parents were unhappy with ps for my sister and I too, and tried to make changes for us. Homeschooling wasn't an option for them. August who can't read (ha!) wants me to put my finger under the words when I'm reading to him. He listens to books on tape and turns the pages at the right time (without the jingle). I know he can read Dr. Suess, and he reads environmental stuff all around him. All this with NO READING LESSONS. NO BORING DICK AND JANE BOOKS. Ok I lie. He went to kindergarten and brought home "readers" he was supposed to read with me. One word per page type books, horrifically boring. he did not want to read them, and I agreed, I would rather spend time reading, reading books we both enjoyed. So we didn't read them, I didn't sign on the line that they'd been read, and his teacher, who was super duper, didn't care (I doubt she liked the books). She was a fantastic lady, and if he'd had her for grade 1 which was rumoured, I may have sent August. However, there were social problems in his grade. I digress. Shall I elaborate......11 girls 5 boys. One of the boys had cp so very disabled. With the upcoming devil of a grade one teacher one mother skipped her son to grade 2, one lady let her husband move them to another district and boom August and 1 boy were left. And that boy had home troubles, although he was a sweetheart. If I needed any other justification for taking him out of school it happened during the grade one year when one of the needy girls' stepfather shot himself as he was being investigated for sexually abusing her, and she came to school on Monday and told all the kids "My daddy killed himself" Like I want to talk to August about things like that when he's SIX. I better stop ranting and back to the point of my blog which is reading........I talk about letters and sounds with the kids in everyday life, but that's it. We do "play" with letters and HWOT, but never if the kids are not into it. Environmental words, reading to him, reading a lot, and he reads. My unschooling friend echoed what I had just said to my husband One day he'll pick up a huge novel and read read read. Her son, energetic like mine, is not into picking up a pencil, but he loves literature like crazy.......when he does read he'll want to and he'll do it because he wants to.....Should I tell you my crazy grade 1 reading story???? OMG
So there we sit in a circle, each taking a turn at reading, sounding out the words (this is after phonics drill after phonics drill) and I find this EXCRUTIATING listening to my classmates struggle through each word, I can remember feeling their humiliation, and on top of that I can read. So I read ahead, finish the story and move on to my favourite mermaid and prince story (I can still picture the illustrations in my mind, I'd love to get a copy of that reader) and then my name is being called to read....and of course I have NO IDEA where we are in the story that I am supposed to be reading. So get this, the teacher takes my book, sends me to my desk and THROWS the book at me. YUP. And yelled at me. I was in deep shit. CANUBELIEVEIT? I didn't tell my parents for YEARS as I thought I'd done something horribly wrong. After that I got better at keeping the place in the first story while reading ahead. Of course this is what my mum can't get, that I was reading pretty fluently in grade one and August is in grade two.......
argh.

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