Go Ask Your Brother

We are really trying pretty hard to wrap up the school year around here. While I’ve gone ahead and declared most classes already done, there are a few (math, grammar, reading) that I insist on us getting at least a little closer to the end of the book. The 7-year-old’s (hereafter to be known as C.T.) reading is one of those things.

While C.T. is a whiz at math, the whole reading thing is hard for him. He’s newly seven and a boy (yes, being a boy can be a factor in late reading) so I’m not too worried about him, but I hate seeing him get frustrated with something I know he’ll eventually get.

After one particularly exasperating (for him not me) session, I hugged him and said, “I can see that this is not making sense to you the way I’m explaining it, why don’t you go find one of your brothers and ask him to help you? Maybe one of the boys can tell it to you in a way that makes sense.”

He clutched his book to his chest, slid off the couch, and walked off in search of help; and I went to switch around the laundry.

I came out of the laundry room to the sound of C.T.’s voice reading much more fluently than he had with me. I crept up to see which of his brothers was a wunderkind, and was shocked when I saw his brilliant tutor.

It was Peter, who’s FOUR!!!!

I sat down across the living room from them and listened to my preschooler explain phonics to his older brother. At one point, he took the book into his own lap and went looking for something to make his point, and then expertly flipped back to where they’d been.

He finally looked up at me and smiled as he said, “It’s the C’s. He doesn’t like them. Sometimes they sound like ‘s’ or ‘k’ and if they have an H they say ch-ch-ch…..oh and E’s because sometimes they hide their sound.” With that, the son I’ve-never-taught-to-read hopped off the couch and left me sitting there, jaw in my lap, and walked nonchalantly away.