Reading and Math

I have realized that unlike Elizabeth, who loves to read and from whom you have to physically take books away so she will stop reading and go to bed or do her other homework, Jo does not like reading.  She is still a beginning reader, and so she is still pretty much just sounding out all the words, and the long vowels still trip her up, so reading with her can sometimes be a bit of a chore, especially when she gets frustrated or bored with it.

It took me a while to figure this out, though, because she is an absolute whiz in math, and she picks up concepts very quickly.  She also learned her letters and sounds quickly, but it's just the putting them together that she doesn't like to do.

In fact, that's not entirely true.  If we are out somewhere, she will just suddenly pop up with something that she has read off of a sign or a store name, so it's not like she can't do it, it's just that she doesn't want to do it at the times when she is supposed to be doing it.

She can't put words to the reason why she doesn't prefer reading, but my thoughts are that she likes things in order and predictable, which is exactly what math is.  No matter how you write it, 2+2 will always be 4.  And 2+2+2 will always be 6 even if you write it 2x3 (which she actually figured out herself).  But with reading, there are so many rules and exceptions to the rules and all the little letters can add up to be so many different words!  It's not predictable, at least not at her level, and so for her, it's distracting and no fun.

So, I found a fun and easy dot-to-dot book that I have decided to keep aside and 'reward' her with one of the pages when she finishes her reading.  I am hoping that it will entice her to read more and read more quickly without so many tearful interruptions, so that she can get to the dangling carrot of a fun math page.  And I figure that since it's not her actual math workbook, then she will not confuse that and see it as optional, even though she often does her math workbook just for fun anyway.  And my ultimate hope is that by encouraging more reading, she will get better at it and it won't be so torturous and therefore more of an incentive on its own.

Anyway, I'll let you know how it works.