Back To School

Little Bear started back to school yesterday post Christmas break. Her comment in the morning when she dressed and stood waiting at the back door with enormous enthusiasm about the return to school was, "I need a break from Break."

Upon returning from school she said, "I want to read." I thought she meant she wanted us to read books together. She meant, "I want to have the ability to read on my own." It held a ring of frustration, so we worked on reading. My frustration reared its head as I felt I was missing some tools to help her unlock the mystery of reading. So today, complete with a serious bout of vertigo, I sought resources. It looks like I need to learn how to read so that I can teach her. I am missing some tools. What I read made sense (perhaps because my head is still mysteriously spinning). The concepts of "sight words" and a language with more exceptions than rules has bothered me. It bothered me as a child. It makes language learning feel more difficult than it need be.

In High School, I was lucky enough to have an excellent Spanish teacher, Mrs. Zimbrick. One day, exasperated with the class' general ignorance of English Grammar and structure, she stopped teaching Spanish and taught us English from a structural standpoint. I'd always been good in English, but her lesson that day threw the switch on the ballpark floodlights in my head and led me to learn two new languages.

This sounds like a digression, but it isn't. In teaching Little Bear to read, I've felt that same frustration of not having the key to help her open the subject fully... Not grasping the underpinnings that (once understood) make the layers of details of your subject fall into place and the world sought open and accessible.

So we begin the process of teaching the mother to teach the child. To all you homeschoolers out there, I tip my hat.