I know why this - his reading regression - has happened, of course. When we arrived here, my primary concern was that he settled in well; that he made new friends; that he felt relaxed, confident, and at ease in the different system he is now in. The last thing I wanted to do was to push him. It worked. He is now so at ease he has slipped back at least 6 months in his reading ability and when recently tested has come up at 'below grade' level.
Below grade?
MY SON?
MY son?How can this have happened? His reading was fine - better than fine - when we left London. But now, well it appears that repetition is the key, and we just haven't been doing that.
(As a side note, this is where my studying Russian is proving worth it's weight in gold; I can sympathise a lot more than I would otherwise have done with his struggles to understand and sound out words, because he sounds just like I do when doing my homework...)
So we've been spending a few minutes each day working on his reading, and in an effort to get him enthused about it, I've made sure to get him involved in the selection of the books that we get from the library so that he actually wants to do it.
This is all well and good, but it does mean that most of our reading matter is confined to one of three topics; animals, dinosaurs and superheroes.
And that in turn means that... well, see for yourself.
Me: "OK, let's start."
Boy #1: "I am Tri-cer-a-tops. I am a dinosaur and I am big and strong. I have three spiky horns on my head - oh, mama, look at that horn, it's really small, if he was attacked by a T-rex the top two would probably go in but the bottom one wouldn't, and do you think that would work, because t-rex's are really fierce and they attack without warning and - oh yes, the book.... and I have a bony frill on my neck. The bony frill was for protecting him, did you know that? And Triceratops would only eat plants but they could protect themselves yes they could and you know they were able to defend themselves against the meat eaters and..."
Me: "Shall we turn the page?"
Boy #1: "Yes. I look fierce but I am quite gentle. But not with scary dinosaurs he wasn't, was he? With scary dinosaurs, like the allosaurus or the t-rex they could defend themselves and look after their young and their eggs and...."
So. It's taking a while...
So we've been spending a few minutes each day working on his reading, and in an effort to get him enthused about it, I've made sure to get him involved in the selection of the books that we get from the library so that he actually wants to do it.
This is all well and good, but it does mean that most of our reading matter is confined to one of three topics; animals, dinosaurs and superheroes.
And that in turn means that... well, see for yourself.
Me: "OK, let's start."
Boy #1: "I am Tri-cer-a-tops. I am a dinosaur and I am big and strong. I have three spiky horns on my head - oh, mama, look at that horn, it's really small, if he was attacked by a T-rex the top two would probably go in but the bottom one wouldn't, and do you think that would work, because t-rex's are really fierce and they attack without warning and - oh yes, the book.... and I have a bony frill on my neck. The bony frill was for protecting him, did you know that? And Triceratops would only eat plants but they could protect themselves yes they could and you know they were able to defend themselves against the meat eaters and..."
Me: "Shall we turn the page?"
Boy #1: "Yes. I look fierce but I am quite gentle. But not with scary dinosaurs he wasn't, was he? With scary dinosaurs, like the allosaurus or the t-rex they could defend themselves and look after their young and their eggs and...."
So. It's taking a while...
