TheBanyanTree: The Boy Can Read

[Margaret R. Kramer]

Our older grandson was accepted into the gifted and talented children’s
program and now he receives special reading and math classes as part of his
kindergarten curriculum.  I think it’s great he doesn't’t have to change
schools and can stay where he is.  He has a wonderful teacher and has made
many friends and feels comfortable in his school.

I knew he was ready to read, because he’s been writing, writing, writing,
and writing.  There was a time I think he was writing down on any available
piece of paper every word he knew.  Then he became frustrated because he
couldn't’t put all these words into complete sentences.  OK, when I was in
kindergarten, I was worried about writing my name, and writing complete
sentences weren't’t even on the radar map.

But I think the light bulb came on in his head and the words began magically
stringing themselves together.  I found this out when we were in the urgent
care waiting room last Sunday afternoon waiting for his brother while he saw
the doctor.  The little one was one sick boy.  He has asthma and had been
sick with the flu and that made his asthma worse.  He was coughing and
hacking along with everyone else in the waiting room, and I was hoping my
immune system would fight off all the cold and flu germs surrounding me.

I found Dr Suess’ Green Eggs and Ham and the older one began reading it to
me.  Wow!  He doesn't’t read with his fingers or try to sound the word out
phonetically, it’s almost like he’s taken a picture of the word and pulls it
from memory as he reads.  I learned to read that way, too.  I remember I
could read simple books before I was in first grade.  I was always way ahead
of most of my peers with reading and I was reading adult books in third
grade.  My teacher would let me go to the more “advanced” sections of the
library to get my books.

His mother told that he has a couple of books at home he can read by himself
and I told him that I have the Cat in the Hat here for him to read.
Actually, since he’s been born, I’ve quietly built up a small mini library
of books for my grandsons.  Dr Suess is a wonderful way to start a child on
the way to reading for pleasure.

Reading is like having a key to the secrets of the universe.  If you can
read, you have at your fingertips the accumulated knowledge of the human
race.  I told my grandson that reading is the basis for everything.  For
example, he loves to play video games, and I told him now that he can read,
he’ll be able to read about the game he plays rather than guess how to play
it.

And he has access to the internet.  He can go online and find out whatever
he needs to know.  I had to trudge to the library and dig around in
encyclopedias to do research.

I hope reading for pleasure captures his imagination, too, and he’ll learn
to love poetry and novels and Harry Potter.

Learning to read is like learning to walk, a big marker on life’s journey,
and I’m so proud he’s taken his first steps.

Margaret R. Kramer
margaretkramer at comcast.net

http://www.polarispublications.com
Be a star!

http://www.bpwmn.org
Business and Professional Women of Minnesota

A bird does not sing because it has an answer.  It sings because it has a
song.
~Chinese Proverb