Our long time readers may remember that about eight years ago my family started doing foster care. We had about twenty children come into our home, a few came twice. One young boy came into our home when he was fourteen months old. He ended up not going home and we eventually adopted him.
When we started writing about him Janine called him
Baby Bob. But he is no longer a baby; he is almost eight an a half. And very much a boy.
He has a few areas he struggles in. He stutters a bit and for the last couple years has made very little progress in reading. He loves to listen to stories. He can soak up hours of
StoryNory.com. And for maybe close to two years I've been reading him stories like Black Stallion, Hardy Boys and more recently Tom Swift. His auditory processing has greatly improved and he is clearly following the story. Fairly frequently he'll interrupt to say things like "Tom shouldn't do that."
These last two weeks we've had a major breakthrough. Kind of on a whim, I decided to have him try to read "One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish." I had him read ten and twenty pages each night before I read another chapter of Tom Swift to him. Baby Bop struggled. It was hard. When he got stuck I'd help him. After we finished it the first time I had him read the whole book again. This time it was much easier. He still struggled, but he could see the progress he made in just one week. But the most exciting thing was that over this weekend on his own initiative he sat down to reread it a third time!!! There were still a few words he struggled with, but he really did a great job.
The major breakthrough is really that he has changed how he sees himself. Before he didn't see himself as a reader. Now he is talking about when he is going to read The Enormous Egg.
I am so glad we have been able to homeschooling. He wasn't pushed into reading a couple years before his brain was ready. By letting him develop on his own, he is now moving into the exciting world of printed words, with self confidence and eagerness.
