My 8 and a half year old is reading about a book a day now. The Magic Tree House by Mary Pope Osborne has captured his imagination. It’s unbelievable. I catch him lying in my bed for 30 minutes at a time. On the front porch in the rocking chair. At bedtime for way too long. Devouring every word. Complaining when I call him for table work, chores. “Just one more page, Mama?” Stuff my dreams are made of. The end-all in homeschooling. The pass or fail of the reading teacher.
It’s been a long time coming. I started trying to teach him to read at 5. That was after pushing him to learn his letters at 3 and then at 4. Failing at every turn. A constant failing. Not his, mine. I knew it then. I know it now. The end has eased the guilt of the first time means. But only partially.
There is a learning curve with the first. One I wish I hadn’t walked. One I wish I could detour others around.
It will come.
With quiet loving encouragement. And sometimes no encouragement. Just waiting.
This reading road is his.
It always has been.
It always should’ve been.
It’s one he loves to walk now. He’s abandoned ambling along. He’s sprinting.
He races to the end of each book. And I know how it feels. I was once that kind of reader.
I would approach a new book cautiously almost cynically. The reading would gather speed as I came to know the characters, their personalities. I would fly through the words, running faster and faster, stumbling over myself, not stopping for sleep, food, life. Until I had abruptly reached the end of the book. Left stunned by what I knew was coming. The blank end of the last page. Wanting more. Lost without more words. A true addict. Moving onto my next fix. And the cycle would continue.
I wanted my children to read. For learning. For me. For them. It’s essential. Our entire plan of teaching our children comes down to these two things. Teach them to read. Instill a desire to learn. Everything else falls beautifully into place.
But secretly I wanted that addiction to pass to them. There’s something magical about the hours lost in the typeset on a yellowed page.
I was afraid I would lose my aging children to a world of their own. One where they disappear into the tv, video games, the computer. One where I wouldn’t know them anymore. I wanted them at my feet. Underfoot. Now when my oldest is out of sight, he’ll stumble in, hair disheveled, eyes of that bleary word absorption haze and bubble over all of the adventures he’s been on with Jack and Annie telling me of the unfairness of the ancient Greeks for not allowing girls to compete in Olympics, of how just before a tsunami washes ashore the water pulls mysteriously far out to sea, how there were ivy covered walls in the Titanic when the band played until the ship went down.
And I smile. And breathe easy. And get a library card. I indulge his addiction. Passing on the flame. Knowing the fire was not lit or kept alive by my pushing. But by my enabling. And my patience.
