Lucy read her first book today! It was the first bob book in the series and while they aren't the most interesting thing in the world* seeing the concept of blending "click" for her was amazing. Probably on of the top mom moments so far was seeing her start this new skill and seeing how proud she was when we got to "The End."
But there is this little part of me that keeps worrying that I'm pushing her or that I should be trying to hold her back or slow her down. Maybe "hold back" is not the right concept but more so that I should be trying to get her to focus on other things. And we do. Yes, she read a book today but she also made colored noodle necklaces and played pretend with her daddy so it's not like I'm cracking the whip so she's ready for the SATS. But I know so many mom's that on their later kids say they wished they didn't so much so early with the first one or two, that instead of worrying I'm not doing enough, I'm left worrying that I'm doing too much.
Although truthfully, I am holding her back. She loves reading and math "lessons" so I have to limit her. And they are the first thing on the chopping block of things to lose as consequences. Craig and I laugh about it but "If you don't change your attitude, we will not be doing math/reading today" is actually a very common phrase around here - because it works!
Even with reading lessons, we've been slowly working our way through the first 26 lessons of The Ordinary Parent's Guide to Teaching Reading which is learning a letter at a time. Even though she knew most of them before we started, I still wanted to go slow because I didn't want her to get stuck and frustrated at blending or to keep asking for "lessons" when I knew what she needed was more time. So we'd do a few letters, then take a few days to practice them by playing some different letter games I made up.
Then she started doing this "No, how about I read it" thing at bedtime which doesn't really work when you can't actually read. So we compromised and I'll read but if I see a cvc word I think she can do, she'll sound out the letters and I'll blend them with her so we can move on. Today I noticed she really got it when we did that with cat so I took down a bob book and off she went. At first it was slow but by the last page, she knew what she was doing. And my first reaction was, "Oh gosh, I need to tell Grandma/Grandpa/Aunt Steph, etc so I was going to put it on facebook but stopped. I just couldn't. I didn't want to be that parent.
So maybe it isn't that I'm afraid I'm pushing her but that I'm afraid people will think I'm pushing her. Like I'm a hypocrite? I know that if I'm talking to a mom about our kids and she says "Oh, Johnny is 3/4/5 years old and just not interested in learning his letters or doing workbooks" or "I'm worried because she's struggling so much with X), I'd be the first one to say "Ah, don't worry about what other people think, if you know he's fine and happily learning other things, let him play, don't stress." I swear I feel that way! But then I'm doing reading lessons with my three year old!
Of course, maybe this worry is all for nothing. Scratch that. Of course this worry is all for nothing. Worry almost always is, I know that. But what I mean is, maybe she'll wake up tomorrow or in a week or two and reading will be out and something else will be her new obsession of the moment and we'll pick back up with reading lessons next year. Who knows.
Okay, I think I've dumped enough.
*Although I must say all the talk about sam sitting on mat and mat sitting on sam made me laugh because her Sunday school class has two brothers named matt and sam and I can definitely see them sitting on each other.
Good job Lucy!!
ReplyDelete