As was to be expected, Kieran did not kick off his reading career anything like Liam did. In fact, he was quite the opposite.
Kieran struggled to “break the code.” I believe that early on, he tuned out during alphabet and phonics lessons, or learned enough to “get by.”
We struggled when he would bring books home to practice reading. He would say he had read them already and that they were boring.
He was reading them by memory, which was not why the teacher had sent them home.
When we spoke, she said that he got easily frustrated with books above a certain level. She sent home easier books so that he could practice decoding and sight words and build his confidence.
I don’t know that her goals for him were completely met, due to him memorizing the words, but I admired that she did not give into his self-proclaimed boredom to send home things that were too hard. She also knew that how he felt about reading was just as important as developing reading skills.
Had she not been as knowledgeable about Kieran as a reader, and advocated for what was best for him, it might have turned him off to reading from early on, and possibly forever.
