Worksheets were never a problem. Well, not in terms of having enough of them to keep M busy. Not since preschool when they were just for fun. She chose sticker books that made me feel like a lunatic even mentioning multiplication to my daughter because she would rather do a math homeschooling book than coloring. For us, they were her version of coloring books, even though I tried not to let too many people see what my small child was doing too closely. We still were convinced that she was just like every other child out there, with the exception of loving math. We were still putting most of our thought into which schools we might consider for her. The days of loving math are past, as are most of our hopes of using schools before college, as well as the days of us being blissfully ignorant. Or, at least, comfortably ignorant.
She still gets excited about worksheets. However, the consistent pattern is that she starts it excitedly, usually after asking if she can "start yet" several times. After beginning, they are inevitably less fun than she expects and she lapses into resigned execution of the homeschool assignments.
Reading material presents a significant challenge for us. So many people we encounter have children who read very early, but that was never us. In fact, a mother in our girl scout troop had me traumatized that my mother had not started me reading before Kindergarten. My mother had been a teacher, which made the offense more severe in her eyes. I went home wounded that day and asked my mother if I was behind because I didn't know how to read. My mother calmly told me that she knew I would have no trouble reading, and said that she hadn't taught me because I hadn't shown interest. She asked me if I wanted to learn, and I admit to her that I didn't. I went on to become an avid reader and do quite well in school. My mother was certainly right about that.
Reading progressed the same way in our parenting. We put on Leap Frog DVDs (as opposed to my childhood Sesame Street time) and got learning toys and games, along with purely entertaining toys and games that imparted some level of education. However, we never talked about, worried about, or even put much thought into reading. At a Kindergarten conference, her teacher told us it was time to get her some level readers.
My superior intelligence was evident in my response. "Oh, OK. What are level readers?" The teacher kindly & patiently explained, showing me examples, and recommending Barnes & Noble. I nodded and went to Half Price Books the next day for a good long perusal of the kids section, ending in the clearance rack. I purchased the levels her teacher had recommended and a few more. I figured that planning ahead and shopping the clearnace section would be good for our budget. I also picked up a Spongebob Chapter book for my friend's son, who hated reading at the time.
That night, after I brought M home from school, she asked what I had, so I showed her. She was convinced that she did not know how to read, and was resistant to the pile, even though several of them were obviously about things that interested her. I asked her to grab a board book - any board book, and joined her for some reading time on her bed. She repeated that she couldn't read. I told her to read only what she recognized, like the sight words from school, and told her I would read the rest of them for her. She needed me to read exactly one word. Then, she got excited and grabbed another board book, which she did not need any help with.
Suddenly, the level readers were a hit! I was feeling like a good mom and continued sorting and doing my thing while she read the Level 1 pile. Then, I got wary as she came back to get the level 2 readers. Was she actually reading them? Did she understand? Was she just looking at the pictures? I asked her some questions when she brought the finished pile of Level 2 readers back to me. I had not yet moved. She had read them. She had understood them. I now understood something, too. I was in trouble.
She went through every book that first night. In fact, she came back looking for more and only saw the Spongebob chapter book. She asked who that was for and I told her. She shyly outed asking why she couldn't read it. "Of course you could, honey, but it's harder than the other ones I bought because he's older than you are. It's harder than the ones your teacher recommended, and I think it might frustrate you. It would probably take a long time." She stood there silently in response. I handed her the book, and she completed that one, as well.
OK, Spongebob Squarepants is not Shakespeare, I realize. However, we had started the day hearing that she couldn't read, and ended it with her reading a chapter book. Even though Spongebob Squarepants was the subject, I knew I was in trouble. I went to a different Half Price Books the next day, again getting a variety of levels.
Within a week, M told me her teacher had noticed her improvement and was going to have her do a test the next day to see if she could join a different reading group - it was named after a color, maybe purple. M was excited about it, and I had not mentioned a thing to the teacher, so I was impressed that she had noticed so quickly. M passed her test and was accepted into the other group. I knew she had improved and figured it was a more advanced group, but never intended to ask. I was just glad my girl was enjoying reading.
The staff knew me a bit. We were out of district, so I drove every day both ways. I also volunteered because my work schedule often left me available during the school day. The next week, the teacher commented on her reading. I told her how excited M had been about the purple reading group and thanked her for making M so happy. The teacher told me she had moved her right into the top group because she had improved so quickly; that had meant some catch-up work in a book they had been reading, but she had taken on the challenge and done very well.
For the last year or so, M would read hundreds of pages per day without provocation or reminder. She read Shakespeare (a kids' edition - appropriate content and level is a whole other conversation) and laughed about the Roman mob when Caesar died. The mob seriously cracked her up. She has taken in enough to have an intelligent remark to make in a group of adults discussing the role and change of Christianity in governing powers, adding that Constantine was only baptized right before he died. I never knew that until this week when my little girl told me. And yes, she is still pretty little.
This Fall has been a challenging one. Here's the perspective, now that we're (hopefully) on the other side of some of it. She was reading about 10 pages a day, and only with nagging. Thsi went on for weeks. We had to implement consequences and discipline around it. This is not like my child. I had no idea what to do about this. Our entire homeschool plan has had exactly one constant - the kid loves to read and learns well by reading. Suddenly, she was not reading. Apparently, I was in trouble again.
My husband wondered if the books were too hard after reading some aloud to her. He's a very intelligent guy, but period language and accents throw him. He did not know that she had already completed 2-3 books in a series with that same language, style and character without slowing. I worried that we didn't give her enough time off this summer. It was the first summer she wanted time off. It was also the first summer I was prepared to deal with the volume of material she typically wants, so this took some adapting and compromise.
She's been in vision therapy, but hundreds of pages down to single-digits was a bit too much for me to attribute to that. Kids put things off and choose to disobey. While I know that, this had NOT EVER been true of our child. In the movie, the Sandlot, wasn't it Smalls whose mother told him to go get in trouble? Our daughter is like that.
Finally, I talked to her vision therapist about it. K assured me that as the vision system is realligning and adapting, most kids need a scaled back workload. I agreed and told her I had adapted her daily reading assignment to about 50-60 pages per day, and told her the previous and current reading speeds. It relieved me to see her jaw drop. Maybe it seems premature, but I have so much faith in the theapist that I just knew we had turned a corner with that jaw drop. In a few questions and less than half an hour, we understood each other and had a common goal.
Here's what I learned, in a nutshell. We were in the middle of light therapy, which expands peripheral vision. My girl is intense and extreme, like her mother (and her father too - shhh!). Apparently, slowing of reading is very common, but the extent was quite uncommon. At the same time, her peripheral field had opened very quickly. The pros and cons were both extreme.
Light therapy also can affect the entire nervous system. That makes sense to me, and I even expected it. It involved 20 minutes per day of looking at a special light with a colored filter in it. Some families report behavioral changes. Boom. I got it. This was not my child, actually. It was directly related, but I had not expected all the side effects nor the extent their impact on our daily lives.
The good news is that things go back to their original quick pace, and should within weeks for M. Some of her other "resets" have happened extremely quickly, and I have already noticed an increase in her speed since that conversation. Her therapist gave her some things to think about and try as she was doing light therapy & schoolwork during that time, which also helped. Everything is not back to normal, but understanding it makes all the difference.
Imagine being born and going through life with blinders on, as if you were a horse. Then, imagine having them removed, having never experienced site without them. That is just the physical visual experience M went through with this over a very short period of time. Now, I understand more about the internal journey as well.
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