Reading Homework

Troy had started to get homework every night now. The teacher has assigned us reading exercises. And yes, I meant us, because I have to sit down and do it with him. He is given a book of words, and he has to read them aloud to me. He’s supposed to be phonetically sounding out the words, but since most of them are accompanied by a picture, he “guesses” the word based on that instead. The problem is that half the time, he guesses incorrectly. For example, a picture of a hamburger bun was guessed as “bread” instead of “bun.”

The other problem is that he can’t sit still for more than five seconds. So, he’s constantly moving his feet, messing with the buttons on my pocket, or sliding into a reclining position. I got so frustrated at one point, that I actually duct taped his feet to the floor!

Overall, I was pretty patient…at least for the first hour…not so much the second hour. That’s right. An exercise that was supposed to take ten minutes, took two hours to complete. He cried incessantly. He said that he couldn’t do it or couldn’t remember at least 182 times. He said that he was the worst at least 23 times. But through it all, I wouldn’t let him quit. He thought he’d wear me down, but it didn’t work. I’m too stubborn.

He struggled with knowing the difference between “b,” “d,” and “p.” The “g” gave him fits too. But by the end, he actually read a complete sentence all by himself. And he was proud of himself. I just hope that every night isn’t like this.