Reading together

According to her teachers, Lena has been reading since sometime in Kindergarten.  At her conferences, they told me her reading group, and I knew she was writing some because I saw the work coming home.  But would she read for me?  NO.  nothing.  Not a street sign, not a word from her books.

Last year at our suburban public school, Lena had packets of homework every week.  Mostly handwriting, some cut and paste syllable, vocabulary type worksheets.  At 5, she had little interest in doing any of the homework, procrastinated and took a terribly long time doing it, and generally fighting with Mommy over getting it done.  (I ended up delegating homework supervision to our au pair... worked beautifully, just like having the au pair potty train my girls did!  Sometimes it's easier not to have the power struggle). 

I didn't think the kind of homework that Lena was getting last year was developmentally appropriate.  Why should my 5 year old be spending after school time doing workshe
ets and handwriting sheets when she'd just spent the last six hours doing the same thing?  She needed to move, to play, to RELAX.  To be with her sister with no plans (note sister cuteness in the matching picture in this blog!)

This year, at our NYC private Jewish day school, the first graders just got their first homework assignment (no homework in kindergarten there).  Every night, the kids are to read with their parents.  Book is up to us-- who reads is up to us-- but we just have to participate, and sign that we read every night.  The kids pick the book, write the title on their sheet, and decide on a WOW word (from what I can ascertain, this is just a word that they like??).  Lena and her friend from her class were SO EXCITED to begin their homework, reading together and discussing what their WOW words would be.  I worried that I would have to battle Lena to get her to read to me.  Then...

Mikaela was in bed and Lena pulled out a book and decided to read to her.  So sweet.  The book she picked was simple, with mostly the same words on each page, with just a few changing.  She figured out the new words on each page and read out loud to both of us, remembering to show her little sister the pictures as she finished each page.  I'm looking forward to her homework now each night.   And Lena loves her assignments too.  Isn't this what being 6-years-old is about??