I mentioned in my last home schooling post that my first grader is struggling a little with reading. I also mentioned that he started off really well, but now he’s crumbling. In fact, he pretends like he’s going to sleep when he is reading to me from his “reading book”.

What changed?

Well, the first week of school, you have the excitement factor going for you, so there’s that. However, I think it’s more than that here. Caleb doesn’t enjoy reading yet because he doesn’t think he’s good at it. Therefore, reading four pages about making hot dogs was just killing him. It really was. (Believe me, I was hanging on for dear life too.) Therefore, we have retired both  A Handbook for Reading  and The Story Tree, both 2nd grade readers from the A Beka curriculum. Those are just the introductory readers. There is a whole year’s worth of reading books.

These books actually were not too hard for Caleb. They were too boring for me to survive listening to Caleb.

Meanwhile, at least I know he is reading out loud at school every single day. Surely great progress is being made!

I took him to the library and MADE him pick out books, rather than sit and play blocks, like he usually does. We usually come home with a few Mo Willems books for Caleb and then random, sweet books that I have picked. That’s not cutting it. He has read every Mo Willems book there is, I think, so we needed some more material.

We came home with Frog and Toad (Yes!) and a whole lot of Star Wars and Angry Birds. We also happened upon another favorite author of his:  Doreen Cronin, and Caleb read every one of her books that the library had as well.

It isn’t that Caleb can’t read. He can read.

It isn’t that Caleb hates reading. He likes reading what he considers to be good books.

It’s just that he loathes reading anything “boring” or “too hard.” Tonight I plan to peruse the second grade reader that comes after Story Tree, to see if it is any more interesting. Joshua’s third grade readers are full of excellent literature, historical stories, and admirable poems. If only Caleb’s book could be so interesting!!!

What brought about all these new thoughts on Caleb?  Well, we were at the library, and I heard a 1st grader struggling through trying to read a page of one of Caleb’s favorite books: I Will Surprise My Friend. That’s when I realized, “Maybe I’m selling Caleb short. He does sound way better than an entering 1st grader.”

He’s kind of a lazy reader, if that makes any sense. He doesn’t ever want to be bothered with sounding things out. That’s kind of hard to work with.

Today I replaced his usual reading with a book about the Disney Planes movie, and it was much smoother sailing. He didn’t pretend to fall asleep, throw up his hands and quit, or whine once.

Meanwhile, there were other issues in our little school house today, and my nerves are so frazzled right now, I’m using this blog as therapy and to keep from doing housework. The house work seems to be building up an Army to defeat me entirely.

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But not so fast!!!  I may win yet!!!  Alan built the trampoline, as soon as it arrived,  last night!!  Things are looking up, ya’ll!!!

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