This one shouldn’t hurt anyone’s head.

I have another grumpy-ass post eating at my brain but I am going to stick to fluff today. I need a break from me…

Monkey has been working really hard at mastering sight words at school. His teacher sends home copies of the books he is able to read so we can read them at home too. She also sends us a note detailing the ways in which he attempts to manipulate her to get out of doing the work and how she redirects him so we can be consistent in our approach at home. Ahem.

Clearly, he’s not reading War and Peace. The sight word books generally have 1 sentence per page and maybe 8 pages total. The sentences are also generally repetitive. “I see a cat.” “I see a dog.” “I see Mommy’s attention wandering.” That sort of thing.

Given the repetitive nature of the sentences and the fact that he’s read the book several times before we ever see it, it’s hard to know how much of it is his memorizing the story vs. how much he has actually learned to recognize the words.

Last night two cool things happened during forced story time:

1. Caleb excitedly allowed me to read a story to him! Usually he resists and I end up having to tell him, “Sit down, we are reading.” or “No, I won’t get out! We are reading.”
2. I was reading him a book that he is not using to learn his sight words from (Green Eggs and Ham) and I would pause during the story when I came to one of the sight words he has supposedly mastered to see if he actually recognized them in a different context and he did GREAT! I was so proud of him.

After we finished, he wanted to look at the book some more by himself. Since it was bedtime I hesitated, if we stuck to the routine I needed to say “Good night, sweet dreams, see you in the morning!” and shut off the light. It isn’t a good idea to break up a routine in general but the bedtime routine especially is carved deeply in stone, the result of many, many ((many, many, many, many, many, many, many, many, many, many, many, many, many, many)) nights of misery. I stood, hesitating, but Monkey was already absorbed in the book again. So, against my better judgement, I turned on his bedside lamp and told him, “OK, 5 minutes.” and left the room. GAH!

I went and stood next to Duhdee looking a little wild-eyed. “I told him he could read for 5 more minutes.” And then I stood there for a minute before it sunk in and then I grinned because DUDE! My kid had just ASKED to keep the book. My kid was reading QUIETLY in his bed!

When I went back in 5 minutes later he handed the book to me without complaint and told me “Off” while looking at his lamp. I told him “Good night, sweet dreams, see you in the morning!” and just as I closed the door I heard him say “in morning, money.” 😀