Two, One, Two, One

Sophie has been doing reading lessons for a year now. That's kind of a misleading statement. We took a great big break when Topher was born, so I guess it's more accurate to say that we started reading lessons a year ago, but they certainly haven't lasted the whole duration. In that time we've restarted twice and some lessons have taken two days instead of one. We're using the same book I used to teach Peter, Cooper, and Phoebe to read. There are one hundred lesson in total. Today we finished lesson forty-two.

Today's lesson, the photo credit goes to Sophie.

Reading lessons were not easy with any of them. If memory serves, Cooper took less prodding than the others, but I think that's because we saved the lessons for just before bedtime when he and I could have one-on-one time. He thrives with that kind of attention and so didn't put up a fight. Peter and Phoebe definitely did put up fights, but they still did the lessons.

Most days Sophie flat out refuses. She's screamed, cried, thrown things out of anger at being asked to sit with me and learn to read. Occasionally she complies. Usually she does not. Last week, after I asked her to come do a reading lesson she replied, "I'm never going to do a stupid, hateful, disgusting, 100% reading lesson." Her adjective game is on point, even if her obedience leaves something to be desired.

I realize that all kids learn to read at different rates and that I probably shouldn't push it if she's not ready. But, knowing Sophie, I think it's more a case of "I don't want to and you can't make me." That's not going to work so well when she starts Kindergarten in the fall.

I was praying about how to help her, if not learn to read, at least be willing to learn in general. I listened to some really great speakers talk about motivating children and I had an idea. We tried it out the Friday before Topher went into the hospital, then a few times this week. And it's working. I mean, she still argues and doesn't want to do the reading lesson, but not as much as usual.

What are we doing differently?

Instead of pushing through and doing a lesson in one sitting, I set a timer for two minutes. When the time is up, she picks a song and has a dance party for one minute. Then we do two more minutes of reading, followed by another minute of dancing. We repeat the process until the lesson is done.

The first time it worked beautifully. She had so much fun dancing and liked that it felt more like a game. The second time she tried to run down the clock by going slowly and chatting instead of reading. I saw through her plan and told her I would pause the timer each time she stopped the lesson, thus delaying the mini dance party. She stopped that ploy. Today it worked well and went surprisingly fast.

Here's hoping we can get through a few more lessons before we have to change tactics again.