How do we get ds to read to us?
Ds is 6. He's just starting 1st grade in our public school. Last year he was in K on campus at our daycare (they only go through K). (It was Reggio Emilio inspired and very gentle). He learned to read last year. He's got excellent decoding skills (breaking up long words, sounding out and blending), good use of textual and picture cues (he told me "you can use the pictures to help you understand), and a good sight vocabulary (including some odd words learned from bus schedules -- we were driving and ds asked me "Is there a McLoughlin house?" -- we'd just passed a sign, and he knew the word McLoughlin from his bus schedules).
We played "school" on Labor Day - and he was the teacher. He had me read for him, and whenever I got "stuck" he'd help me figure out the word. We were reading easy-ish books that were highly familiar. And he had them down cold. I suspect he's reading at a 1st grade level, maybe a little higher.
So, he comes home from 1st grade with "homework" for him and for me. My 'homework' was to fill out the paper work, permission slips, etc. His homework was to read for 20 minutes. We have a reading log to fill out every day. When I told him that, he went ballistic. He ranted and raved for a good 45 minutes declaring that he didn't want to read, that he wouldn't do it. He could not explain why. I wasn't entirely surprised because when I've asked him to read for me before, he has adamantly refused. And I haven't pushed it. He really seems to be very upset by the idea of reading to us.
Eventually, dh was able to get him to read a few simple words from a book ('my', 'book', etc.) - partly by being silly, partly by cajoling and reinforcing, partly because it was a highly familiar book that dd (3) has memorized much of and so SHE was shouting out the answers (and ds is just a bit competitive). Eventually, we settled on me reading one sentence and ds reading one sentence (it was one of those books with a sentence per page - ds looked over the pages and chose the ones he thought were 'easier'
).
So, he CAN read. He can read easy things relatively fluently. He could read them quickly if I didn't have to pry every darned word out of him. He apparently read to his kindergarten teachers. (He was in the program over the summer, and he read 16 books to earn a reading prize at the local library.)
What can we do? How would you handle this? I don't want to put too much anxiety on our son, but then again, he's not a kid who will spontaneously practice anything he finds hard. I'm not sure how to strike a balance here.
Ds is 6. He's just starting 1st grade in our public school. Last year he was in K on campus at our daycare (they only go through K). (It was Reggio Emilio inspired and very gentle). He learned to read last year. He's got excellent decoding skills (breaking up long words, sounding out and blending), good use of textual and picture cues (he told me "you can use the pictures to help you understand), and a good sight vocabulary (including some odd words learned from bus schedules -- we were driving and ds asked me "Is there a McLoughlin house?" -- we'd just passed a sign, and he knew the word McLoughlin from his bus schedules).
We played "school" on Labor Day - and he was the teacher. He had me read for him, and whenever I got "stuck" he'd help me figure out the word. We were reading easy-ish books that were highly familiar. And he had them down cold. I suspect he's reading at a 1st grade level, maybe a little higher.
So, he comes home from 1st grade with "homework" for him and for me. My 'homework' was to fill out the paper work, permission slips, etc. His homework was to read for 20 minutes. We have a reading log to fill out every day. When I told him that, he went ballistic. He ranted and raved for a good 45 minutes declaring that he didn't want to read, that he wouldn't do it. He could not explain why. I wasn't entirely surprised because when I've asked him to read for me before, he has adamantly refused. And I haven't pushed it. He really seems to be very upset by the idea of reading to us.
Eventually, dh was able to get him to read a few simple words from a book ('my', 'book', etc.) - partly by being silly, partly by cajoling and reinforcing, partly because it was a highly familiar book that dd (3) has memorized much of and so SHE was shouting out the answers (and ds is just a bit competitive). Eventually, we settled on me reading one sentence and ds reading one sentence (it was one of those books with a sentence per page - ds looked over the pages and chose the ones he thought were 'easier'
).So, he CAN read. He can read easy things relatively fluently. He could read them quickly if I didn't have to pry every darned word out of him. He apparently read to his kindergarten teachers. (He was in the program over the summer, and he read 16 books to earn a reading prize at the local library.)
What can we do? How would you handle this? I don't want to put too much anxiety on our son, but then again, he's not a kid who will spontaneously practice anything he finds hard. I'm not sure how to strike a balance here.
