Do you remember learning to read?  I sure don’t, although this isn’t really a huge surprise since I don’t have a lot of memories from my kindergarten years.  I don’t think it’s until I was in the third grade that I have a lot of real memories.

As a mom who loves to read I’ve been stressing out. Gage has known his letters since he was about 18 months and had a lot of sight words before Pre-K.  But reading? Not so much.  Even sounding out words is frustrating for him.  Memorizing words not a big problem but when you can’t sound them out and he has so many he can get easily confused.

Since kindergarten started he has made great strides.  Still a struggle, but not nearly as frustrating.  We were doing a workbook today and I realize just how many more words he knows and how he is finally understanding the process of sounding out a word.

When I went to the parent teacher conference they said he was at 1.5 level math (1st grade, 5th month) but in reading the test is a little different and he’s in the probable reader classification.  Kids on the spectrum can be just as smart as the next kid, but sometimes learning needs to be done in a different way and usually one on one.  I gave up Gage’s one on one tutoring over the summer and even that was only 2 hours a week for the previous year.  So, for now, I wait patiently.  And hope that there is such a thing as a reading gene and that it kicks in soon.  Yes, I realize that sounded less than patient.  I’m trying!

Reading to me tonight 🙂