Reading Progress!!!!

Guess who read a book in Spanish last night! I was very proud of him. It is really hard to learn to read in a language that you are just learning to speak. I met with Matthew's teacher a couple of weeks ago and she stated he was having trouble reading. I watched him in class and noticed that he wasn't reading the sight words as quickly as the teacher was showing them and although he was looking in her general direction, he didn't seem to be looking at the words. I asked his teacher if there was anything I could do at home and she stated she would begin sending books home in about a month.

A month is a long time for a young boy to wait to get individual attention in reading. I have never been good at just patiently waiting for my children's teachers to decide they are ready to teach something and have always tried to find ways to supplement the children's education. I just get frustrated trying to help Matthew because his curriculum is in Spanish and there isn't very much available.

I found a book store that had some easy reader books in Spanish and spent way too much money on books. I took some of Matthew's worksheets at school and began working with him at home on reading and writing his "sight words" and he picked them up almost immediately. I also started reading to him at home almost every night from the Spanish books. Yesterday Matthew picked up one of the easier books and started to read it to me before I could start reading to him. He got stuck a few times on the bigger words but overall knew most of the words. I started working with him on looking at the word and picture when he gets stuck instead of just guessing any word that starts with the same letter and he did even better.

It was a huge relief to see him reading on his own and seeing that he will be able to pick up reading quickly once the teacher starts sending books home. We will keep reading at home and I recently started working with him on math to build his number line. He went from struggling to read the numbers in the teens to being able to read them and put them in order forward and backward within 2 practice sessions.

Matthew may still qualify for summer school especially since he is just learning Spanish but he is making significant progress with just a little extra attention. His biggest challenge continues to be having a very limited Spanish vocabulary but that will change as he speaks Spanish and hears Spanish more.