Monday, January 30, 2012
A half is sometimes better than a whole
Being stressed out to the max with reading lessons with Luke had worn me down. I decided that for both of our sakes, I needed to cut these lessons down. In half actually. He seems more willing to do the lesson and I don't put it off until I finally HAVE to do it. We may not get through the lesson book as quickly as the book wants us to, but we will get through with them and our world will be more peaceful!!
Friday, January 13, 2012
January 2012 - Second Semester of Kindergarten - A New Semester - A New Beginning
Not saying it's a good beginning. This week has been a real struggle. It always is a struggle when it comes to reading with Luke. He wants to clown around or look around or get up and play when it comes to the time for him to really WORK and practice his reading lessons. I am almost to the point of saying that I am sending him to public school next year. I can't see that my relationship with him is going to be made up of fighting, spanking, and yelling for the next 11 1/2 years. I am doing my best to alter the way I react to him when he is not ready to focus on his lesson. I am trying to be more understanding and more positive with him. It just gets so difficult to stay positive when he is constantly trying to get up or to not WANT to do his work. And I wouldn't want to learn with someone threatening to spank me if I don't complete my work. However, he has to learn that it is important for him to complete his lessons! Not only is it SCHOOL, but it's a life lesson. You have to complete what you start. And it's not always going to be pleasant or easy. But it is necessary.
I can totally see how far he has come with reading in just one semester! We flipped back today to the first "story" in his lessons and it was 3 words. "See Me Eat" He is now reading multiple sentences and knows about periods and quotation marks. He can read about 85% of the words in his stories without sounding them out! I can see the rewards, but it's hard to see that when you fight every day just to get him to sound out a word he doesn't know right away.
He has a hard time pronouncing the "sh" sound. We work on it each day. He can say it, but it's not automatic. It comes out sounding between the "sh", "ch", and "th" sound. He struggles with any word that has an "n" in it. If it's at the beginning, he wants to add it at the end too. And vice versa. Sometimes if there is a word before another word that has an "n" in it, he will add an "n" to the next word. I know these are minor problems. And we work on them every time they come up. He writes his letters in a counterclockwise fashion instead of clockwise. Which I am now discovering, and have conveyed the concern I have for when we get to cursive writing. But we are working on this too.
He is learning so much and I am so proud and I tell him each day. But I fear that the praise is lost because of the struggles it takes to get to the praise. :(
He's flat out lazy. He gets that from me. He doesn't WANT to write more than a few letters before he becomes "tired." He doesn't want to do more than a few math problems before he again becomes "tired." Same with reading. I just tell him "Sorry, dude! This is your school work and we aren't finished until the work is done."
He's a good kid. Very sweet, considerate, caring, smart. I just hope I'm doing what's right for him by homeschooling him this year. And I do really want to school him at home next year. But I struggle each day with that decision. God give me strength! Please!
Not saying it's a good beginning. This week has been a real struggle. It always is a struggle when it comes to reading with Luke. He wants to clown around or look around or get up and play when it comes to the time for him to really WORK and practice his reading lessons. I am almost to the point of saying that I am sending him to public school next year. I can't see that my relationship with him is going to be made up of fighting, spanking, and yelling for the next 11 1/2 years. I am doing my best to alter the way I react to him when he is not ready to focus on his lesson. I am trying to be more understanding and more positive with him. It just gets so difficult to stay positive when he is constantly trying to get up or to not WANT to do his work. And I wouldn't want to learn with someone threatening to spank me if I don't complete my work. However, he has to learn that it is important for him to complete his lessons! Not only is it SCHOOL, but it's a life lesson. You have to complete what you start. And it's not always going to be pleasant or easy. But it is necessary.
I can totally see how far he has come with reading in just one semester! We flipped back today to the first "story" in his lessons and it was 3 words. "See Me Eat" He is now reading multiple sentences and knows about periods and quotation marks. He can read about 85% of the words in his stories without sounding them out! I can see the rewards, but it's hard to see that when you fight every day just to get him to sound out a word he doesn't know right away.
He has a hard time pronouncing the "sh" sound. We work on it each day. He can say it, but it's not automatic. It comes out sounding between the "sh", "ch", and "th" sound. He struggles with any word that has an "n" in it. If it's at the beginning, he wants to add it at the end too. And vice versa. Sometimes if there is a word before another word that has an "n" in it, he will add an "n" to the next word. I know these are minor problems. And we work on them every time they come up. He writes his letters in a counterclockwise fashion instead of clockwise. Which I am now discovering, and have conveyed the concern I have for when we get to cursive writing. But we are working on this too.
He is learning so much and I am so proud and I tell him each day. But I fear that the praise is lost because of the struggles it takes to get to the praise. :(
He's flat out lazy. He gets that from me. He doesn't WANT to write more than a few letters before he becomes "tired." He doesn't want to do more than a few math problems before he again becomes "tired." Same with reading. I just tell him "Sorry, dude! This is your school work and we aren't finished until the work is done."
He's a good kid. Very sweet, considerate, caring, smart. I just hope I'm doing what's right for him by homeschooling him this year. And I do really want to school him at home next year. But I struggle each day with that decision. God give me strength! Please!
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