Friday, June 13, 2008

My Little Bee-ar

Because I am not technologically skilled enough to actually embed a video into this post, first you have to watch this.

That is one of my favorite comedy bits not performed by Chris Rock. It has always resonated with me because of my past life as an elementary school teacher. I never considered that one day this could be a reality in my own home!

That’s right- Connor’s learning to read. I have to say, it is BRUTAL! Some days he really seems to get it, but a lot of days it seems like he’s just looking at the first letter and then making a guess based on the illustrations in his book. There tend to be a lot of frustrated sighs (from both of us) and by the time we get to the end of a book I am just openly calling him Bruno.

Here is one section of the book Max that absolutely ruins me every time he reads it:

The bad rat sat.
The bad rat sat and sat.

Just like in the Gerry Dee’s routine, Connor struggles loudly, slowly, and strangely through the first line. I mean, it takes him five minutes just to settle on “thee” or “thuh” for the opening word, and things don’t really pick up from there. Then he starts the second line as if he has never seen any of those letters before, and certainly not in that configuration. I know I should have more patience, but by the end of these surprisingly long ten words I am struggling to stifle either giggles or condescension. I forgot that learning to read is such hard work! But at least now I remember why I quit teaching.

2 comments:

Sassy Molassy said...

When Somerset was four, she learned lists of words with the same endings and practised writing them, and it really seemed to help things click for her.

cjaxon said...

Mine does the same thing. She will roll through it one day and the next she will be struggling to get started. She also tends to create her story from illustrations. It is SO hard to keep your cool, so hard not to just spit out the word they are stumbling over ... but you have to do it. Apparently ... not sure, because it has not worked for us yet. She still has her days on and off. Awesome that Connor is working at it though!! Remember what a world opened for you when you learned to read your first book alone?!?! Oh, I still love that world!