Caleb (and Naomi) Learning to Read and Write

As we approach the end of 2018, Caleb has been in junior kindergarten for four months. It has been a wonderful, unwieldy, surprising, long four months that seem to have gone by in the blink of an eye. As we’re into winter here, and I’m dreading the next couple of months ahead, I’m almost hoping January and February go by in a blink as well, but I know better than to wish for that.

It’s been fun and terrifying to see him lined up with the other kids, to watch him at his assemblies, to see his successes and failures. It’s probably even more alarming for me to see what kind of parent I’m turning out to be, as I consider all the different parent types I dealt with when I was a teacher.

In any case, Caleb has been learning to read and write, and it’s been a thrill.

Last year in preschool, Caleb had very little interest in writing letters or numbers. He would draw and colour and scribble, but I think starting preschool at age 2, he didn’t have the fine motor skills to form letters yet. I’ve sort of left him to his own devices, not wanting to rush him into things, but this year he’s turned a corner. Now that he’s in kindergarten, he probably sees the older, senior kindergarten kids writing with relative proficiency, and maybe his own fine motor skills have also advanced, and so he’s now developing his own interest in identifying letters and sight words and practising copying words and sentences out.

It’s hilarious and sometimes tedious and delightful and a bit startling to imagine all the overwhelming changes going on in his tiny brain, learning new social skills, words, responsibilities, habits, and especially, this concept of transforming these tiny strokes into letters and into words and sentences.

And of course we’re doing our best at home. I had read somewhere that reading books with pictures is a good medium: if it’s a video the brain is sort of zoning out and everything is “too easy”; if it’s a block of text, it’s too difficult and so there isn’t enough understanding to make sense of the story, leading to frustration. A book with pictures offers enough clues and context to help a child put together all the words into a story. And so we read together – story books, poems, silly rhymes, easy books, books with more text.

Development at this age is wild. Caleb has a folder where he brings home a new book every night, and he has to fill out his form with the title and who he read the book with. In September, he wanted someone to write out the letters first so he could trace them, but within even a week or two, he was copying the letters from the books on his own. It’s funny to see him trying to copy “g” like it looks typed, versus how it is when you’re learning to print – all these things you never think about as an adult.

What’s also funny to watch is Naomi watching her brother and then copying his actions. He sometimes writes on the floor, on his stomach, and this has become Naomi’s new pose for when she’s “writing.” Is it watching her older brother or possibly a more natural inclination to writing tools? Or both? A thrill.

Although, Caleb is often not thrilled when Naomi has drawn all over his sheets. Naomi is smart enough now that she isn’t satisfied with being given her own sheets – she wants exactly that folder. Tug of war, torn pages, scribbled over with pencils. Often, more accurately, a disaster.

To be honest, my biggest flaw in encouraging him to read (and in parenting in general) is my lack of patience. I know (I KNOW) so much of what a child will learn will come from support from home, and yet I find myself trying to convince Caleb to read a book on his own so I can read a book on my own – we’ll just read side by side! I’ll even provide snacks! I know. I KNOW.

In any case. I’m enjoying it, and also trying to enjoy more of it, even while reading the same books over and over again. He will often pretend to read or read stories from memory, or make up his own story in his “reading aloud” voice based on the pictures.

While he knows the sounds of the letters, and when prodded will attempt to match up the words he’s saying aloud to the words he sees on the page, sometimes he’ll just look at the pictures and we’ll end up with “the rrrr bunny” instead of “the rabbit.”