Everett can read.
It has been a long process, and I wouldn’t say that I’m finished with it, but we’ve reached a place, a significant place, and I can say in all honesty that he can read.
I taught William to read, and it felt like the milestone it is, just like teaching him, years before, to use the potty. William is a reading fiend: he often has more than one book going at a time; he has read all the Harry Potter books More Than Once; he reads whenever he has the chance, and I mean Whenever and Wherever.
I don’t remember when, exactly, I felt he was “finished”– that he didn’t need me any more. I bought a book recommended by Marnie, who knows about these things, and William and I made our painstaking way through it. I made him a book chart, and on it we recorded his first 100 books, and when he reached 100, we went to see Finding Nemo. That would make him seven at the time, I think, or close to it.
And now here is Everett, very close to seven, and he is Almost There.
I’ve used the same reading curriculum, and he, too, has a book chart with about thirty titles on it so far. The curriculum has you work through different sound patterns and their variant spellings, one sound at a time, reading and writing and reading the words, pressing the sound patterns into your mind. We worked hard at this, a project made more difficult by the fact that Everett doesn’t much care for Hard Work, and this reading business was Decidedly Hard. And then one day it seemed that these sound patterns needed a break, and I pulled out a book instead.
He read it. Very slowly. Very, Very Slowly. I had my finger under the words. I had to help him remember his sound patterns. I had to remind him that when the word ends in an “e,” it jumps up and hits the middle vowel on the head and makes it say its name. He liked that, but he didn’t always remember it.
I got easy readers from the library. I exhausted my supply of the simpler books Marnie had loaned me. And then I found Dick and Jane.
I learned to read with Dick and Jane. Perhaps you remember them? An impossibly good looking, smartly dressed, middle class American family residing in a suburban neighborhood near you about fifty years ago. Amusing things happen to them, but they limit their commentary on these things to simple words and phrases. They say things like, “Oh, oh, oh!” and “See Jane!” and “Look!” Very Accessible to the early reader.
When I found a 3-in-1 volume of Dick and Jane at the Wal-Mart, I bought it. It was a lark. I thought I might give it to one of my sisters, but ended up forgetting about it. And then I rediscovered it in our bookcase and pulled it out for Everett.
Where the other easy readers had slowed him, frustrated him, and made him frown, this volume with its delightful pictures, amusing tales and progressively longer stories seemed to please him. The repetition of the words ensured his success and built his confidence.
And this is Helpful, because English, if you haven’t noticed, is a Tricky Thing. The word “look,” which we all read and pronounce with ease, has the same vowel construction as “spook,” right? But oh, how different they sound. What one wants in learning English– and, for that matter, in learning anything– is practice. That’s what you get with Dick and Jane.
The book was lying on the coffee table the other day, and Everett picked it up and began leafing through it. It wasn’t “reading time.” I wasn’t planning to give him a lesson. But he picked it up and he began to read. “I’m going to read, Mom,” he said to me. “I’m going to read just for fun.”
Just For Fun.
