Reading is HARD work!

Home schooling this year has been a real challenge.  I've taught Pre-K before, third grade, and fourth grade...easy, no problem.  But God bless all you Kindergarten and First Grade teachers who have the huge responsibility of teaching your students HOW to read.

This year we used the Abeka K-5 program.  I love it.  It really worked well for us.  I just didn't realize how hard it is for some students (like my child) to pick up reading.  My Julia has a photographic memory.  She can memorize ANYTHING.  This will be great as she gets older and needs to study for subjects.  But I have told her again and again that reading class is not the time to memorize (site words yes, but not phonetic reading).

She's been reading for quite some time now, but I still catch her "memorizing" the words instead of sounding out.  Thank goodness Abeka comes with all these little practice reading books.  This way I can really see if she's reading phonetically or if she just memorized the story and knows every word by heart.

I love the fact that I'm teaching her to read...but I do feel this weight of responsibility and wish I could just send her off to her teacher sometimes and have someone else do it.  I think that is the 9 months pregnant lady inside me talking.

We have a lot to be thankful for, that we could provide curriculum for the kids, that I can stay home, and that I indeed enjoy home schooling so far.  Although my heart wonders how I will feel with a newborn in tow..

Anyway, my prayer is we press on...and finish the school year strong, Julia graduates from Kindergarten this Spring and will have a cap and gown ceremony with her other home school peers from the CCOB group that I belong to.

This May I will attend the ENOCH home school convention at the Raritan Expo Center in Edison and purchase First Grade curriculum for her and more curriculum for Mark for next year (I'm not quite sure if Mark is completely ready for Kindergarten the way Julia was at age 4 so we may do a more intense pre-K program with him next year mixed with Kindergarten).

Reading is hard work, we've learned this year, and Julia has already told me Math is her favorite subject...but you should see her eyes light up after she reads a whole book out loud to us by sounding out.  And you should see her at the library as we come home with new books each week, and you should see her at bedtime with her stack of books for ME to read to her.  I pray she learns to love to read the way we do.

God bless all you teachers out there who teach your children/students to read each day...it is HARD work, but somebody's got to do it!