I read every night with my H, who turned 10 just over a week ago. Reading time isn't near and dear to my heart like it is for a lot of parents. When we read, it's not a Hallmark moment. It is hard. I read each and every word silently as he tries them out. Most words he struggles with, even those as simple as "in", "on", and "the". Often I have to stop him and say the beginning sounds of a word until he stops and figures it out. Reading is work. Life is hard when words hold you back.
H is two years behind his classmates in reading. He is impaired in his language and has an IEP (individualized education program) to support this. The teachers insist upon nightly reading. We average six nights of reading per week, at least 10 minutes per night. It's probably not as much as he needs, but it is as much as he will give me every day. Beyond the services the school district provides, we've been taking him to private therapy with a therapist who works at the place the boys used to get Speech and Occupational Therapy. He's been there only a few weeks, and I don't even know what they do there because Mr. Ohboy insists on taking him so they can have some bonding time. I wonder if it is helping.
When we read, I let him choose his books. We read mostly using my Kindle, though his Resource Room leader prefers we read a physical book. I don't care what it is or what format it comes in, as long as he gets to explore something he's interested in. He chooses the books I would expect for a boy in love with potty humor of all kinds: Captain Underpants, Super Diaper Baby, and the considerably more high-brow Diary of a Wimpy Kid. Even with such amusing selections, reading is still a fight. Each night when I ask him to come read with me, he usually whines and throws a fit.
Tonight he bursts in my room and jumps on my bed. "Sorry I'm late," he says. "E was tickling me."
This is not my child. The H I know needs to be dragged into my room for reading time. This H is bouncing like a jumping bean as I turn on my Kindle. When I ask him why he's so excited, he says, "I like to read!" I smile. I like to read, too.
He wants to read on his own so badly. I want him to enjoy it like I do. I want it to set him free.
As we settle into Diary of a Wimpy Kid, he reads slowly and methodically. I only have to help him with a few words he doesn't know and one he guesses incorrectly. It is a huge, nearly overnight improvement. When we reach the end of the first page, I stop him to tell him how phenomenal he is and ask him what happened since the last time we read together.
"I'm reading smoothly," he answers, as if it explains everything perfectly. It does.
We laugh at the picture of Greg dressed up as a talking tree in the school play. He moves on to the next page. And the next. Then the next. In our usual ten minutes, he reads four pages. Three pages is our norm. I don't know who this child is, where this blessing has come from.
For a minute, I'm on the edge of crying. It's the warm glow of a porch light in the middle of the wilderness, a cup of water in on a hike through the blistering desert. It is hope.
I don't take it for granted.
