Imperfect Genius

Mehalje is doing really well with her reading. After an initial (and might I add disastrous) experience with a reading program which was recommended by well-meaning but misguided experts, we backed off and decided to let her skills develop at her own natural pace.

She has been able to read simple phonetically-controlled books like “The cat sat on the mat” for about two years. And although we were really eager to see her take that next critical leap, we resisted pushing her.

Instead we created a reading-friendly environment with lots of high-interest books placed on low shelves. We also put a light beside her bed and let her stay up for a few minutes after her brother went to sleep, with just one stipulation - she wasn’t allowed to play but she could sit quietly and look at books. And we did occasionally offer words of encouragement.

So, while we didn’t directly pressure her, we created opportunities for her to get reacquainted with books in a friendly, fun way. We wanted reading to be something she associates with positive experiences and we knew it would take some work to undo the damage done during the preschool program.

Over the last year I’ve noticed that she’s been spending more and more time just sitting and looking at books and it became pretty obvious that she was paying attention to the text as well as the pictures.

One day she went through a whole series of See Jane Run books, slowly turning each page. I could tell she was reading them (voluntarily I might add, which is a big accomplishment). I asked her to read it aloud but she just shook her head and closed the book. Not ready yet.

A few weeks went by and she got a card from a friend. She opened it and stared at the words and then slowly read them to me. She didn’t need much help and she was very proud of herself when she finished.

MJ is a perfectionist - she’d rather not do something than attempt it and fail. It’s a very common trait among Aspies, gifted children, and right-brain learners. What she needed was to have a successful reading experience in order to get motivated. This gave her more confidence than anything we could have said.

For the last couple months she’s been reading almost everyday. Several weeks ago I made an agreement - for every night that she reads a book at bedtime I’ll read one, too. I had stopped reading books at bedtime and instead read to the kids throughout the day, all of us piled together on the sofa. But she missed storytime at night, so that was the deal we came up with.

At first I picked some early readers for her - the kind with just six or seven words per page. She breezed through them pretty quickly. Now she is starting to branch out into level 2 and 3 readers. She’s read most of the books in our homeschool stash so we’re running out of material, but that’s a great problem to have! We just made a trip to the bookstore and the library to get restocked.

I gently guide her reading choices because if a book is too hard she becomes frustrated easily and wants to give up. We don’t want any tears at this fragile stage, so I try to help her pick books that introduce a just few new words at a time. It’s also important that the book be appealing, both visually and story-wise. Although we’ve found it hard to find “living” books at this reading stage, we try to get as close as possible.

Interestingly she usually selects a non-fiction book to read aloud and picks a fictional story or mythical tale for me to read. Whatever works! We’re just very happy with her progress and especially tickled that she’s enjoying it!