Reading

I had to take a standardized test for my college last week. I haven't taken one of those in quite some time. Instead of being the parent reading the scores of my child, here I was taking the test and having my intelligence judged, it was an eye opening experience for me. I haven't gotten the scores yet, so I cannot qualify this post by telling you exactly how smart this test has determined that I am or am not.

I noticed as I took this test that it was terribly boring. It was very difficult to focus in on the content because it was not at all interesting. The wording was not the type of wording that one can skim, it was complex sentence after complex sentence. While I can normally read, blogs, news, books, college text books at a pretty good pace and come away from the experience remembering most of what I have read, I had a very difficult time doing it on the test. I could feel the strain on my brain, a physical sensation of a strain on my actual brain, I did it and got threw it, but the effort was more difficult than the actual work. Basically the questions were easy but the sitting threw the test and reading the material was excruciatingly hard. Kind of like reading this post.

My point is learning to read and being a good reader is something that is hard to qualify with a test. This test I took was more a measure of my ability to have self discipline than my ability to read. I notice this with my girls as well. Mandy reads volumes of books every week. I estimate that she reads about 2000 pages per week in the form of several short books or a couple long books. When I take the time to read on of her books and we discuss, I find that she remembers every detail, even a year later. She is also quite good at inferring the overall meaning of the text, why the author said this or that and what the character would do in another situation. However, Mandy on performs average on those standardized tests. Sometimes less than average. I think it is an attention thing, and not a comprehension or ability thing.

The same is true with math. I have been tutoring on and off in math for more than 20 years. I have always been extremely successful at helping people. These people always come to me saying that they are horrible at math and they just can't do it, and by the time I get through with them, they get an A in their class. What is the secret? The secret is that different people learn in different ways, they understand the information and come to their conclusions in unique ways. Tutoring is more about listening than about talking. Listening to how they interpret the information and getting into their language and their system and pointing out a step here and there to help them connect the dots. Some people have a natural ability and for some people it takes some mental strain to connect the dots but most people can do math, even you.

I think the same can be said about reading. There is an element of intelligence, and element of the methods of teaching, and an element of is the material interesting. Basically what I am saying is that it is easier to learn to read when you care how the book turns out, than it is when you are repeating sounds on flash cards, or some other monotonously boring learning to read technique. Instead of presenting information that is at the reading level of the kid, I think kids do better when they are presented with reading material that is at their intelligence level. Mandy didn't learn to read no matter how hard I tried and how much we practiced until she was 8 and we read Harry Potter. We went from Courdory to Harry Potter. While she couldn't read Courdory she was quite able to read Harry Potter. Once she got up her confidence she was able to read anything. But, to this day she struggles with the ability to read things she finds boring like a standardized test.

Reading things that are boring and uninteresting is an important skill to have to be successful in life. School does an excellent job of teaching kids that self discipline that is necessary for this skill. Moms do a good job of helping kids get over the hump when they are having trouble with learning at school. So many people are arguing the merits of home schooling vs public schools. For me I think there has to be a combination of both. I am great at catering to my girls and finding ways of making the material interesting and explaining things in a way they understand. I know them better than anyone and I learn in very similar ways to each of them. However, I have not been successful all by myself in teaching them how to adapt themselves to the environment and read and succeed in ways that are hard. Life has a lot of layers, solutions are a little of this and a little of that.