Neko has been excruciatingly slow in learning to read.
(Excruciating for me. It hasn’t bothered her one bit.)
While the rest of the world was busy sounding out words, she would put in a few half-hearted attempts and then scurry off. When many of her peers were happily reading their first books, Neko could barely pick out basic words.
I told myself not to worry. My mother told me not to worry. Neko’s teachers told me not to worry. I mostly didn’t worry, but then I would run into some kid her age with a 200 page book tucked under his arm, and I would fall into an unexpected landmine of worry.
The thing is, I suspected she was perfectly capable. It’s just that, reading, so I hear, requires you to sit still. You can’t run and read. You can’t hang from the monkey bars and read (well, not efficiently). You can’t scamper from couch to trampoline to coffee table to trampoline to couch to trampoline run check on the chickens and then hit trampoline on your way back and read. I also think she lacks confidence in her abilities. She’s one of those kids who likes to be perfect at something from the get-go.
So we’ve been biting our tongues and gently encouraging. We’ve been reading books aloud that challenge her cognitively. But we didn’t want to force the issue. More than anything, I want her to love to read, which is certainly not accomplished by flashcards and required reading.
Around the New Year, I suggested she could stay up fifteen minutes later if she was reading. If not, off to bed at her ususal time. She decided if she could have a Rainbow Magic Fairy book from the library, she’d take us up on our deal.
The Rainbow Magic Fairies make me roll my eyes a bit. A literary work of genius, they are not. There are about a zillion books in the series, so clearly quantity is outweighing quality. But a few days later I brought a few home.
Day one she read about a page. Day two yielded maybe a bit more. But tonight something clicked. She started reading, and suddenly we realized she had made it through a whole chapter. So delighted with herself, she read another. By the end of that chapter, she could barely stay awake. But she was giddy with excitement, refusing to let me help her sound out words. She would have kept going, but bedtime had long since passed and neither of us could stop yawning.
I’m trying to remind myself this enthusiasm will come and go. We might be back to one page tomorrow. But for tonight? We experienced some Rainbow Magic in these here parts.
