More on Aseem's Reading

My friend Betsy told me what her grandmother said to her about learning to read. Her grandmother was a reading specialist in the Ohio system, with a whole lot of experience teaching kids to read. She said, "Reading is 99% readiness and 1% exposure." If you push before a kid is ready to read, you and the kid are going to be frustrated. On the other hand, cnce they are ready, the 1% exposure is all it takes for them to start reading.

We are seeing the truth of this in action with Aseem. He recently started reading and now the process is accelerating as he assimilates his newly-learned skill. I am trying to do what I can to make him aware of patterns in words. So today I wrote: RED, BED, TED. He read them without a hitch. I followed up with:

AND, BAND, LAND
ZOO, ZOOM, ZOOT
LOO, LOOM, LOOT
TEN, TED, BED, BET

He read them all without a problem.

I have a chart of sight words (100 basic words that everybody needs to know to read at a basic level), and yesterday he took a shot at reading them. He knows many and he was able to sound out many more. It's so much fun to watch him learn these new skills with evident excitement and pride of ownership. I feel like I have the front seat for the greatest show on Earth!

Aseem is Reading

Aseem has been really eager to read and has been focusing on sounding out letters and asking for help with making sense of words he cannot make sense of. His efforts are beginning to stick. In the morning he read "R-E-D, red" without hesitation. Yesterday Aseem kept pestering Manisha about getting his XO connected to the Internet. She clicked on the Camelot email folder to retrieve the relevant email and he said, "Mom, you won't find it in the Camelot folder!" Today he read off the box of crackers - 5 g Fiber "5 grams of fiber" and the name "All-Bran Crackers".

Aseem has a great thing going for him - his perseverance. Once he grabs something by the horn he will not let go. That's how he has learned to read and ride his bicycle and now he is doing awesome stunts on his bicycle at the local skateboarding park (I will have pictures and videos soon...)

Supriya's Band

Supriya had a band rehearsal today and boy what a difference eight months make! Six months ago these same kids had met and played at being a band. Today there were a band! Luke and Joe had created a song (and their music teacher had created a structure for it). Today Supriya and Wiley added drums and accordion to the mix and the result was very impressive.

 

Next step? Finishing the song and then creating a music video for it. Rumor-mill has it that guinea pigs will feature prominently in the video. Stay tuned...