Teaching Reading to a Child with a Processing Disorder

Sometimes I could just scream while trying to teach my daughter how to read. Do you see this pic of a bear? It's a bear. Right? Not a beaver; a bear. Anybody can see it's a bear. But Tink insists in reading the word beaver for bear. Even when she has the picture in front of her she says beaver instead of bear. It's so frustrating. Today after the umpteenth time of saying beaver she finally comes to the word and says, bea..no BEAR, so loudly I about jumped out of my chair. I gave a little smile and thought we would continue reading. But no. Tink dissolved into tears crying that I had laughed at her "just like all the public school kids had done"! She cried and she cried. It's amazing what one little misstep can do! It took us a half an hour to start reading again.

She consistently replaces the word when withthen. I mean every time she reads it! And every time I correct it and she reads it like that again. It never ends. Other words she reads entirely backwards. The following sentence took her five trys to get right; When bear woke up he felt something holding his tail. Heres how she read it. I kid you not because I purposely took note: Then beaver woke up and ..left..he left..then beaver woke..beaver woke up he left some thing..then beaver woke up he left something..under..

At this point it takes every bit of self control to not jump out of my chair and go screaming for my room. Quietly I say, "Tink lets start over."

"Then beaver.."

"Tink its WHEN BEAR..."

"Waaaaaa! you told me the word. Now Im not reading anymore because you told me the word. I knew that word...I cant do this..I'm so tired...then she growls like a bear and spits. I reprimand her for the spitting, pull her back up on her chair for by now she is sliding off almost to the floor, and we try again.

And to think that people think I should put her in 4th grade. I want to scream when people tell me that. Hey people, 4th graders are reading major books by now and writing book reports. They know the difference between a bear and a beaver. A two year old can tell you the story is about a bear if there's a big bear on the page. Oh Lord, give me patience and unlimited amounts of tongue-holding forbearance!

We took an extra long lunch break wherein Tink took a nap, did her therapeutic exercises, had her skin brushed by me and ate a peanut butter and banana sandwich. By then it had begun to rain so I put a fire in the stove and the kids made beds in front of it and there in the warmth of the fire we had literature and geography. Tink did her Math after that and we called it a day. These are the reasons I love to homeschool!

The kids took this picture of me reading to them. My chair is right at the bottom of their pink blanket to give you an idea of the room lay out. And hey, do you see my new floor in these pics? We finally got it in and we love it although it's much colder than the carpet was!

This article has been submitted to the Carnival of Homeschooling.