- Try not to get discouraged - (Believe me, I know sometimes this is easier said than done).
- Stick with what they know until they are comfortable and fluent at it. - We worked on 3 letter words for about 3-4 months.
- Reward their efforts. - If she tries really hard and makes the effort I reward her with stickers, etc. After so many accumulated stickers you can offer a reward.
- If you feel yourself getting frustrated, find a mentor. - There is a great lady at our church who has/still is home schooling her 8 children. She doesn't have a struggling reader, but she's had struggles and is such an encouragement to keep me from wondering "What am I'm doing wrong?"
- Most of all, try to enjoy them. It's super hard when they don't want to read, but give them time. Read to them and enjoy the time you are spending with them.
Wednesday, November 3, 2010
I'm Discouraged My Child Isn't Reading
Last May, at the end of the school year, I felt as if I was at a stand still with one of my children. She wouldn't read, and when she did try I wasn't seeing much progress. After much frustration on my part, I decided to back off for a while and give us both a break. I continued to read to her, using my finger to point to the words so she could see what I was reading. When we started school again in August, I decided she could use as much review as possible, so we pretty much went back to the beginning. She didn't seem to be "getting it" any quicker than she had last spring, so we went slow. Some days I wondered if she would ever catch up. Within the last month I have seen huge progress. It took a long time, but I feel like we're finally moving forward. Here are a few tips that may help.
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2 comments:
I am a relatively new reader so I am not sure how old your child is but... there ARE studies out there that show early reading *may* not be all it's cracked up to be! :) So don't fret!! Sounds like you are on the right track with your activities to build her skills. Definitely I agree - it's important to READ to them regardless of their level (even high level readers benefit from being read aloud to), because really you want to build LITERACY while you work on reading skills. And there is so much more to literacy than simply being able to sound out words.
I wish you the best! :)
I'm so glad that you feel you've had a break through. For some children it can be hard to get them motivated to read. The one thing that we surely want to teach is not the skill level of the reading but the pure enjoyment of a book. The skill comes with the enjoyment. I hope that she continues to open up to the idea that reading is fun.
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