A Little Story

 This morning

My first three girls were always pretty successful readers without much intervention from me.  Then Freestone got to first grade and he was way behind grade level, for a number of reasons.  He is young for his grade, he is shy and very methodical and overly careful.  During his kindergarten year, we didn't read.  I had a lot on my plate and was just trying to keep my head above water.  I guess I thought he would be fine, but when his first grade teacher sent him to "Reading Club," it lit a fire under me.  I HAD to get Freestone up to speed!  I never wanted him to think that he was behind, so I just took the approach of reading with him a LOT.  We did his home reading and then some.  We read anything by Dav Pilkey over and over.  (Thank HEAVENS for fart jokes!)  Free worked his way from the very first book in the classroom's remedial level all the way through the very last book in the most advanced set.  Along the way, he became a reader.  He still stays up late, often wandering into the kitchen hours past his bedtime saying sleepily, "I finished it!"

Because I was so careful not to let on that we were playing catch up, I never said anything like, "You HAVE to get your reading done."  I have lots of experience trying to motivate Freestone, and making something seem like drudgery is not one of the most successful methods I have tried.  With Free, I was really positive about "Project-OMG-Freestone-Is-Behind-Grade-Level," even when I was crying at my girls' lunches, worrying that he would be an illiterate juvenile delinquent in no time at all.  My friends gave me resources, showed concern and reassured me.  Little did Freestone know, he had a whole coven of book-loving mothers rooting for him in the background.  My friends were right.  Everything turned out just fine.

Anyway, this whole post is just another invitation to Kids' Book Club, which is just another way to disguise learning as fun.  Ari, Freestone and I read Tuck Everlasting, and it was good.  Golda opened Anne Frank in the car on the way to ballet and has found it hard to put down.  I'm about to start reading it with Ari, since she has to read a biography for school.  It's going to be fun when we have book club and the kids see that other kids read too, and that they love it so much, they want to get together and talk about it.  Which reminds me, regular book club is at my house tomorrow at 8:30.  See you there!