Reading

Fellan is in first grade. He hates sitting still most of the time. He doesn't show much interest in reading.

We got our first list of spelling words this week. I've been dreading this because I expect that it will cause both my husband and I undue amounts of stress. How in the world is he going to pass a spelling quiz when he doesn't want to read?!

So, on Monday evening, we got out the list and started asking him to spell the words.
cat
c-a-t
hat
h-a-t
man
m-a-n
and
a-n-d
at
a-t
(etc.)
He got them all with no problem except for "the". "The" seems to be a really tricky word for some reason.

So he knows all the sounds that the letters make, he just hates being forced to read!

This is becoming a problem. The nannies seem to have started judging us. One of them came up to the husband the other day and started quizzing him:
"Does Fellan read yet? Do you read to him every day? When you read together, do you read to him, or do you make him read the book? Do you have books for Fellan to read?..."

Oh brother. We're of the opinion that he's doing fine. There are other children in his class who don't read yet either. And when we've talked to the teacher, she specifically has said that there are all different levels of knowledge in the class - and that's OK. It's OK. It will come - I have no doubt.

We learned this lesson the hard way with potty training. He cannot be forced into doing something that he doesn't want to do. So, we're waiting patiently, trying not to force it too much and make bad connotations for him with reading.

We're trying to creatively introduce reading into our daily lives in different ways. Last night, we broke out the sidewalk chalk for the spelling words. We point out his "sight words" on signs around town. My husband got him to write the letter to me on the computer the other day. Baby steps. On a tight rope.