Josh is Reading!!

Homeschooling is not easy. Especially if you are actually trying to do school...I am just now getting to the point of being able to maintain a clean house and get school done each week! For years, it seemed like I could choose... teach children, have a clean house, or cook a good supper. I could usually get two out of three accomplished, but it was VERY rare that they all happened in the SAME day.

However, there has been absolutely nothing in my life that has been more gratifying (besides giving birth) than seeing my kids go from non-readers to readers, and knowing that I helped them accomplish this milestone!

Josh is 7, and has gotten to absorb a lot of things at a young age... he knows a lot more Latin and history than the others did in the second grade, and the kid is a math whiz... but he has gotten robbed in the area of reading. He did not get as many age-appropriate books read to him. Instead, he had to listen to chapters and chapters of Johnny Tremain and other books with no pictures. Also, I started my job at a very critical period in his phonics, and there were too many days where it was just too easy to say, "We will do it tonight after dinner." Of course, this translated to, "No phonics today."

I have buckled down over the last few months, and it is finally clicking! He is on lesson 90 of "Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons," and he is starting to recognize the phonogram patterns quickly and on his own! Hooray!! I am so proud of him!

I am also trying to do a better job of reading aloud to him each evening. It's funny, when I start reading "Lyle, Lyle Crocodile" or "Miss Nelson is Missing" or any other book, the other kids come creeping out of the woodwork and end up all gathered around me too! I guess we never outgrow those read aloud favorites!