Mama Fail

I have anxiety about homeschooling. I have been told by public school parents it isn't any less stressful to send a kid to school that to school them yourself and I have to agree. We all wonder "am I doing enough" or "is my kid really learning what they need to know?".

Some day, most even, I feel like we are doing pretty good. My kids all learn differently and are good at different thing and we do our best to encourage them to take on hard tasks with integrity even if they will never be the very best.

Sometimes I am pretty sure I suck at all the things, schooling my children included.

This is a story of a big, fat fail.

Addilyn has always been a reluctant reader. Learning to read takes focus, which comes hard for her. It also takes attention to detail (n is a different letter than m) which isn't her strong suit. She has performed at grade level-ish, but has no love for reading, which KILLS me. This year she has struggled. As a 3ed grader, she is beyond "reader" style books and firmly in the chapter book camp. It hasn't gone well.

The other day, after frustration and tears on both our parts, I sat down for a pow-wow and trouble shoot session with the hubby. We came to 2 conclusions: the first is Addilyn had to up her game and stop doing half-ass work and the second was that we needed to go back to basics and figure out what the kid had missed that kept her from progressing.

The next day we told Addilyn our plan of attack, she was on board and promised to work hard. We started with sight words flash cards. We did the kindergarten ones, the first grade ones, the second grade ones....

To my great surprise, she didn't struggle with a one. She knew them all, most without sounding out, and the ones that stumped her she decoded. I asked her why she did so well on the flash cards but struggled with the book we were reading.

Her, "The cards are EASY, I can see them"

Me, "...you can't SEE the words in the books?!"

Her, "No, the words are small in the chapter books and the letters look alike"

FACE. PALM.

Off to the eye doctor, who confirmed the child needed reading glasses. Off to the "therapist" (some people call it the liquor store) for the crappy mama who didn't realize that the kid didn't have a READING problem, she had a SEEING problem. Oy vey.

We now have some catching up to do. Not being able to see her work has lead to lousy handwriting and an even lousy-er attitude about reading. At least now she can see the flipin' words.