Can Your Kids Read?

My 2 big kids can read like no other and used to love it until tech took over. Which makes me sad because books are my life. I love to read and even smell them. When the 2 big kids were at Woods Elementary School in Ft. Smith, AR, they were taught to read, spell, and write. That is what you are supposed to learn right? Well apparently all school districts don't teach kids the same basics, even with the state. My little one only had 2 years at Woods before we moved to Stuttgart for a year and then to Fayetteville. I was amazed that she did not have weekly spelling words with definitions, a specific story or 2 that correlated to at least some of those spelling words, and writing assignments to go with the spelling and reading. She is now about to go into 7th grade here in Fayetteville and she struggles with and hates to reading, can't spell anything, and her handwriting looks like a 1st graders. She also does not like to write.

Now don't get me wrong, I struggled with the reading and spelling and some with the writing as well. However, I learned to read and write in super small middle of nowhere towns in Arkansas. When we moved to Ft. Smith my 2nd grade year, I was nowhere near the level that their school district was at. Keep in mind, the last time I checked, Ft. Smith, AR schools are within the top 5 school districts in the state. I had the misfortune of getting a teacher by the name of Donna Wintery that year. She made me hate school and cry everyday when my mom dropped me off at school. At the time we did not know I could not read. She as a teacher should have recognized that or at least had me tested or spent a little more time with me. Instead, she ridiculed me and called me stupid in front of my new peers. I was so stupid she just did not have time to deal with me and sent me to the counselors office everyday with my work. She and the librarian would help me. I would be done with school work everyday by lunch time and play Super Mario Brothers on the Nintendo in her office for the rest of the day. I had mentioned to my parents multiple times that my teacher was mean and hated me. They thought I was just being a typical kid complaining about my teacher.

However, what they did not stop to think about was that, I went to preschool, kindergarten, and 1st grade never crying or complaining of school. In fact I loved going to school. Thankfully, they finally met Mrs. Wintery, they realized I was not exaggerating how awful she really was. She told my parents, I did not belong in her class because I wasn't smart enough or mature enough to be there. After that conversation, my parents had the school do some testing on me. Come to find out, the only thing "wrong" with me was I just couldn't read. At least not to what the Ft. Smith Public School District said I should be able to do by that time in my schooling. They put me in resource classes to work with a teacher and sometimes a small group of other kids that had deficiencies in reading or other subjects during that time frame in each of their classes. It did help tremendously. I participated in reading resource classes from 2nd grade to 6th grade with Mrs. Wideman and loved her.

Unfortunately, it was not near enough to get me caught up to where I should have been. And, the damage had already been done, I hated school and reading. Outside of school I refused to read, and in school I ended up with so much anxiety about having to read out loud in class that, I now cannot do any public speaking of any kind. Even if I am not reading off of anything. I am just so self conscious about reading aloud, my brain shuts down. I hated school until I went to college when my youngest was 1 year old. Even then and now, I struggle with public speaking or reading aloud. At least I no longer cried when I was left at school each day.

I was always kind of shy, but had started to grow out of that when I started preschool. After my experience with Mrs. Wintery, I was no longer the outgoing kid I had turned into. I did not want to participate in things and only had a couple of friends. The summer before 7th grade, my Aunt Mable borrowed the Hooked on Phonics program from Mrs. Kay. She was a school teacher, the wife of the preacher, and sat in the pew behind us at church on Sunday's. We did not use the system correctly, but we took the books full of words and would lay in bed every night before sleep and just read through the lists of words for the entire summer. When I went back to school in August, I was retested by my junior high school and tested out of reading resource classes with a 12th grade reading level in 7th grade. You would have thought that would have given me the confidence and even enjoyment in reading that I lost 5 years prior, but no. I still hated to read in general, had panic attacks about reading out loud, and public speaking.

Both my parents were readers. Mom more so than Dad until later in life. Now, I think he reads more than Mom does and she has joined the Audible family. Dad likes to read things about history, animals, religion, paranormal stuff, music, art, local and national news, conspiracy theories, and the like. Mom like romance novels. She love a good Johanna Lindsey or Danielle Steele among others. Mom had an idea. She let me start reading romance novels to attempt to get me interested in reading. Let me tell you, it worked. I read romance novels by the dozens. I had a favorite used bookstore downtown called Snoopers Book Barn. I could get lost in their stacks for ever. I could leave with several Wal-Mart bags full of books, each for only $.25 each. Of course that was when gas was still right around a $1 and sometimes under depending on what the first Bush or Clinton was doing at the time concerning the Middle East. I remember hearing on the evening news when I was in 1st grade about there being a draft for Operation Desert Storm, and being so terrified that my Daddy would get drafted. After it was explained to me what drafted and Operation Desert Storm was and meant.

Anyways, I digress. That time frame involved a ranch house and several stories about snakes. Those are stories for another post. So, I started to veraciously read romance novels, but only romance novels until Mrs. Robinson's 9th grade English class when we read a ton of classic literature. Shakespeare became my jam. Obviously, we read R&J, but also The Taming of the Shrew, and that was the year that they made A Mid-Summer Nights Dream with Michelle Pfeiffer, Calista Flockhart, and others. If we watched it and wrote a little report on it we got extra credit. We read other things too. Like, The Odyssey, Great Expectations, Animal Farm, and others. I hated Animal Farm (there is a huge eyeroll and expression of disgust here). So my taste in books was romance and Shakespeare. I guess you could say kind of the same, but kind of not.

That is how it stayed until my 12th grade year, when Mrs. Bevil my senior English teacher introduced me to writing and more classic literature. Once again we read R&J, which I personally owned and had read over 20 times since 9th grade. We also read other literature such as Pygmalion. It fascinated me as much as writing now truly did. When I was 13, I became an insomniac. When I could not sleep, I would read or write. What I wrote was teenage versions of romance novels, none of which I finished. I even ended up with glasses due to reading in the dark with the neon blue light of my "teen phone" landline phone in my room after lights out. The only other books I read besides romance novels and Shakespeare anything up until then was Jurassic Park and Lost World by Michael Crichton. Dad and I went to go see Jurassic Park in theater when it came out in 3rd grade. It terrified me, but I loved every second of it and I quickly became obsessed. My dad had those books and I read them so much for Christmas one year, around 5th or 6th grade, I got a hardback copy of both books in one cover. I did end up getting all of Crichton's books for cheap at Snooper's Book Barn. Not for $.25 because they were not smut books, but still under $5. A lot of the Lindsey's mom got me into were also not the cheap $.25 books. They were on the same caliber as Crichton and Elizabeth Lowell novels.

I started looking to build my classic literature collection due to Mrs. Bevil and took my writing much more seriously. She actually told me one day, that I am a great writer and I better use that. She wanted to see books published with my name as the author on them. I still haven't made that dream come true yet, but I am working on it with my bible, The Complete Works of William Shakespeare, right next to me as I write. All of this goes to say a couple of things. School districts who do not give students spelling words and definitions, specific text to read, and corresponding writing assignments as weekly homework do our students a disservice. Presley is now where I was as a child with reading and writing because the school no longer makes the previously mentions a requirement not because she was taught in a middle of nowhere school district, who is not on the same level as a larger city district. She hates to read, write, and go to school. All things that as an person who has a Bachelor's in English and Secondary Education tears me down. As a teacher in my past life and as a mom it just hurts my heart.

They now have programs such as iReady and Lexia, and many others, that do not teach students anything because they can and have learned how to trick the programs into giving them super easy work instead of what they are actually in need of my just answering everything wrong. Even the things they do know. I have personally sat and watched 150 8th graders do it multiple times in a row because I have reset the test for them to take again due to knowing they know more than what the program showed from having them in class on a daily basis. Districts require these programs despite what their teachers are saying about them and how much the students hate them to throw the programs per-say. My own personal kids do it all the time. I have seen it and they have told me.

I have come across a program I am thinking about trying with Presley to help with her reading level. It is called Reading Head Start. It is for students from 2-14, and has other subjects available as well. The writing and math would be good for her too. We are words people in our house. We don't math. Please don't ask me to math outside of the basics. I really have never used any of the algebra, trig, and very little geometry we were required to take in school in real life. Most of those things are very job specific, unlike words which are needed everyday in every way. If anyone has a kiddo that either has a story like mine or like my child's, I see you and I feel you. You are not alone in how you feel and all the things you are willing to do to help the issue. We are going to try Reading Head Start. You can find it here,https://cbb87kq8qq3a8t9miwjaraqpe3.hop.clickbank.net

Let us know how if works for you, if you think the program is a good fit for your child.

As always, play well with others, no running with scissors, make good choices, and have a great day. I love you!