The Preparation

When making the perfect cookie, there is a painstaking process of dealing with the butter. One cannot just heat it in the microwave to room temperature; the baker has to take the butter out beforehand and let it come to room temperature naturally. The reasoning behind this is how the butter reacts to the oven heat when assembled. This is similar to how a parent handles reading with their kid. Parents need to prep and work on phonemic awareness. This requires time, planning, patience, and persistence. Parents can’t just jump into teaching their child to read with a book; this is technically the first step. Even before preheating the oven, if you will.

The Assembly

After prepping your materials- the sugar, butter, flour (anyone hearing Waitress? The musical?) The baker needs to put them in the right order into the bowl. First, blend the wet and dry separately, then add the dry to the wet. The reason for this is to avoid clumps of flour in the egg, butter, and sugar mixture. That would mess up the baking reaction in the oven. The two separate materials, wet ingredients and dry, come together to make dough, the cookie. Similarly, after prep with phonemic awareness, the caregiver assembles phonemic awareness with phonics (Dry and wet) before the two separate skills combine to make reading. At the outset, this skill of taking sounds and combining them is not reading, not until we add more steps, but it is the base, the dough, the meat of the reading process. ** The pro tip here when combining. To make a truly perfect cookie, the bottom of the bowl needs to be scraped; much like reading we need to make sure there are skills that our kids need that are not “left behind,” like the butter-sugar mixture at the bottom of a bowl. We pay meticulous attention to what skills are being missed. Gather those skills and incorporate them with those skills that are already established.

The Placement

The baker next takes the mixture and tediously places the equally measured dough balls onto the parchment paper, then places them in the freezer. Meanwhile, to be efficient, the baker preheats the oven. After about 10 min. it’s time to bake. The word I’d like you as parents to focus on is TEDIOUSLY. The process of practice for fluency and vocabulary is repetitive, tedious work. Your child needs to read and read, then reread, and read some more, and you, the dedicated parent, listen, gently correct, and listen some more. This part of reading is like slowly taking out the dough and placing it where it needs to be on the cookie sheet. For me, this part is annoying and boring. Like much, listening to new readers read. It’s a challenge because it’s hard. The main difference that you can make during this stage is never giving up, summoning Christ-like patience, and listening to your child struggle. This means not correcting all the time, letting them stretch out sounds, and ultimately throwing a mini party every time they get something right. Remember you’re almost there and this is the last hard step before the good stuff happens.

The Bake

Finally, the baker takes the chilled dough out of the freezer and pops it into the warm oven. The baker will set a timer for half the instructed time. The baker will be tempted to pop them in, set the timer, and leave. This won’t yield the perfect cookie. The cookie needs to be placed in the oven, baked for half the time, then turned halfway through baking. This will ensure the perfectly even bake everyone wants. When thinking about reading, we know this spot of waiting to be a challenge. This stage is what I would relate to using all skills (phonemic awareness, phonics, vocabulary, fluency, and comprehension) together. Working together, waiting, and practicing. Like the placement, this is also a waiting game. The two are related

but different: a child will eventually learn to read; then it’s just about waiting and practicing. Getting books in front of them to read, and more to read and read and read and wait.

The Payoff

After mixing, scraping, placing, waiting, and baking, you get to see the fruits of your labor. A child who loves to read, who has confidence in all things, because of the blessing of literacy they have from you. This is a beautiful, nonreturnable gift, and if they would, they would thank you for it. If you think of teaching your child to read as baking the best cookie, it requires a lot more steps than you thought. Reading isn’t just handing your kids off to your kindergarten teacher. It’s putting in the work, or reading each night, of prioritizing book time over screens; it’s teaching your child grit by not handing them an iPhone during dinner but talking to them; it’s heading to a library; it’s reading in front of them yourself. These are the things that matter. So I beg you, when you pick up your phone to scroll (I am guilty too) ask yourself if this is more important than your child becoming illiterate?

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But in this new season, of moving to a new community, I stand here with my metaphorical extension cord, and ask myself, “WHERE DO I PLUG MYSELF IN?”

The easy, Christian answer is God; that is true. I feel I could be lighter if I were plugged into the light. That requires a whole heck of a lot of trust right now, and it’s making me pause and realize where I was gaining that trust. But for a planner, a doer, a get-your-hands-dirty kinda gal, what do I do? You know what it felt like I was being called to do? Nothing. The most peace I had in my mind was to turn that extension around and plug it into my family, myself.

If you find this familiar, and you are being pulled twelve ways, and you want some room, maybe what I’m going to do might help you. This list may be for me as much as for you.

1: IF YOU BUILD IT, THEY WILL COME

If you’ve ever seen Field of Dreams (if you haven’t, under a rock, much?) So in the field of dreams, Ray Kinsella, an Iowa farmer, hears this aetherial voice say if he builds this field, someone “They” will come. I have promoted myself as a planner for my neighborhood, something I do truly love, but it leaves me with so many ideas and fun to be had, and then I get burnt out. So this summer, if I build it, maybe they will come. I want so badly with my kids and this generation to reinvigorate the 90s kid. The outdoor, streetlight, drinking-from-a-hose kind of summer. So being a millennial mom, I plan it so it happens with Pinterest-perfect precision, and that literally might make me die. So I will build it for my kids, not your kids, but my kids, and if your kids come, then hell yeah! Coordinating food, fun, materials, all those things are the small cuts of party planning that eventually take over. So I have decided to build park playdates, Fourth of July party, maybe a movie night, and kickball games. If you happen to walk by or 10 min before, if we’re outside, and you see us, join in. If I build it, man, I hope they show up.

2: Let’s be bored.

I find it hilarious that Bluey is our family’s favorite. We love the games, the adult jokes, the inside easter eggs. What is so funny about this show is my kids love watching them play, but when given the pack of pens, their first thought isn’t “RUG ISLAND,” it’s let’s draw, or realistically, “these aren’t the ones I asked for” I think this is because in Bluey, there is a healthy amount of boredom. I am not bored enough, I get my pacifier, aka my phone, out and placate my boredom. Yet, I claim myself a creative. So, this summer, rule two: let’s be bored. This goes with reading, I swear, when I’m bored, I’m more creative, I doodle, I hear the stories that move around in my head. I chat with my kids more, and they have great stories to tell. On the side of not plugging myself into anything right now, then I’m not being pulled in any one direction. This leaves more time for books, looking at birds, staring at leaves for far too long, making silly stories, etc.

3: Do Less

This one is next to impossible for me, it basically sums up the other two. I’m going to try to do less. Now, ‘cause I’m home full-time with the kids and I’d prefer they don’t do the summer electric academic slide, we’re going to do some schoolwork. Term used loosely. This basically means I got a book, and we will do it 15 min a day to maintain. These moments with the school books as the sun pours in are so sacred to me. Because they feel like action, and beauty. I love being an educator, especially when it comes to educating my kids. But overall, I plan to try to do much, much, much less.

Well, that’s enough unsolicited advice. More or less, I was writing these thoughts down for myself, but if you got this far, then… well…. thanks.

Think of me fondly, pray for me deeply as I move into my 1,872-hour shift this summer. I hope this letter, inspired in some way, is about unplugging, doing less, and being bored.

Happy reading,

-J

Then the other day, my dinner table caught me in my tracks. It’s dirty, filled to the sides, with not so much as an inch to spare for a plate or a cup of coffee. On top, you’ll find my misguided attempts at decorations, but math games, sensory sand, and a 300-piece puzzle I found at Goodwill. Intact puzzle pieces still in question. The reason it struck me was not the mess, but the joy being cultivated through the play we, as a family, were engaged in.

A current survey states that 50% of parents report playing with their kids. (6 and younger) This is out of 3,000 parents surveyed. Whereas parents report only reading 40- 50% every day. I guess this gives some context to my thought of “I wonder what other people’s tables look like.” Are they as full of playtime and reading as ours? Do they play in other locations? Are they playing what we’re playing? I wonder these things because in all my research into this screen time trouble we find ourselves in, I notice how "against the grain” my family is. We do puzzles, read, play chess, and have 30 min. per kid for screens at home. The games my son plays are old N64 Star Fox and Star Wars, with a mix of watching his mom crush some Ocarina of Time. Among some cooperative games. But we play together as a family. We spend our parenting being so intentional, and I wonder if I’m alone in this?

To me, this table looks beautiful and intentional. Filled with slow, mind-developing activities. We are sometimes too loud when doing a puzzle, exposing our kids to older emo and Broadway tunes. It’s not that we’re a snuffy house of people who aren’t connected to the real world at all. We just guard so much of what comes onto this sacred table. Mainly because it really matters. I mean, take it or leave it, but screens these days are the cigarettes of the 90s. God willing, soon they will be prohibited and go the way of smoking on planes. For the benefit of all of us.

So I ask you? What does your play look like?

What’s the state of your dining room table?

So follow along!

As a reading specialist, I know too much and when those Iready scores, of which I’m not sure I put a lot of stock in, come out and I see my first graders comprehension levels are down. I get a little bit concerned. So it ends up happening is my anxiety around bedtime peaks. I lose patience for a lots of things because this is our dedicated time in our family to make sure that we are reading. Explaining this to my friend as we aimlessly walk around IKEA with no purpose on a rainy day I’m explaining that, I’m frustrated that he won’t listen to me while I’m reading chapter books and he’s yelling at me because he just wants to read picture books I let out a laugh, realizing my delusion. To which my friend replies “Isn’t it funny that sometimes when we say it out loud, we realize how silly it is.”

Do I know that reading chapter books will help him be a better a reader because he’ll picture these stories within his head and be able to answer questions, yes, did I lose sight of the goal of loving books also, yes. As summer approaches our children will likely be chasing butterflies and watching sunsets, and upping our screen time let us remember to follow their lead if they want to read Michael Creighton‘s Jurassic Park because you won’t let them watch the movie or you can’t get them to stop reading, graphic novels, or wings of fire my advice: just let them. Whatever gets them excited about reading. And as I try to remember that, I hope you remember that too.

Happy reading,

I have two kids, one who used every bit of the lessons with reading and blossomed into a voracious reader, with near-perfect comprehension, a love for books, and blessings upon blessings with reading. Then I have another child who brought my big fat head down to earth and humbled me. (thank you) I believed that I might just be God’s gift to earth, with my amazing ability to put my tools into practice and create fully literate children. Look at me, and follow in my steps, and you too can solve this illiterate nation. Have you ever wished you could punch yourself in the face? Silly girl. Anywho, so I have this sweet second child of mine. Who was not into the idea of reading. We’ll call them Ash, not their name, but I also don’t want to embarrass them.

Let me tell you about Ash. Instead of bedtime, tomfoolery is what we found ourselves up to. So Ash would frequently get books taken away. How clever am I, their mother, since Ash liked books. WRONG books shouldn’t have been my bargaining chip. Because even though Ash liked the books, and it was a punishment, I was only hurting Ash’s exposure. This, in turn, I believed, set Ash up for destruction, since Ash wasn’t getting the beautiful ability to hear extensive words every night. This gave the idea that reading and books aren’t that important, so why bother?

Enter the end of Kindergarten, when I, the master of reading, found out that little to no progress had been made, and that sounding out /CAT/ was like summiting a 14er for my 5-year-old. OUCH! Immediately, my millennial mind internalizes all of this, makes it my fault, and sets me on a music montage of “Solving Ash’s reading troubles.” One epic montage later, and we are….. still at squat diddly (That’s Nebraskan for nothing” )

Now, it just turns out that Ash took more time to make progress. Ash also needed one excellent analogy insert HERE. AND surprise!!!! A lot of repeated lessons and reading. After the winter break of first grade came with great maturity and things finally clicked. For me, I learned a lot. Below, I’ll impart my unsolicited, time-tested wisdom.

Things I learned the hard way.

• Books are never meant to be a punishment. In college, I worked at a daycare. Somewhere along the line, books became a punishment. “You lose outside time, go in the corner and read.” Well, guess what moment just became the origin story to that little villain? Books. I was taking away Ash’s books because I frankly needed them to go to bed, and I was done. What I was actually taking away was countless bits of book exposure. This is incredibly important because each book is a pathway into a child’s mind. Yes, even if they read and re-read a book. It actually took my husband to tell me we shouldn’t be taking them away from Ash, because he’s a good man and listens to me.

  • Think about a book as being a chance to practice. We run our fingertips under the words to create the connection of letters, to words, to the story over time. Books in your house should be sacred and plentiful. Go to the library, talk about the books you’re reading, for goodness ' sake, READ YOURSELF (the numbers on adults reading are atrocious, read here). Make reading a part of your family culture. I don’t care if you hate reading; you just haven’t found the right book, trust me. Listen, there is a WORLD of books out there. There is something for you. Ahem, ‘scuse me, I digress. Books are important, carry on.

• It truly takes SO MUCH PRACTICE groooooaaaaannnnn!!! **eyeroll**

  I tell you, this part got me. Cause my goodness, I already taught one of my kids to read, do I have to do it again? Boring! Yes, yes, you do. I lived in this world where I felt that since I already taught my oldest to read, osmosis would happen and my youngest would follow suit. They couldn’t be more different. Ash needed more time with the basics, phonics awareness, and phonics. Ash needed lessons, repeated lessons, leveled books, a purpose to this struggle, “Why am I even doing this? I’m the youngest and have no real responsibility, Mom!” This took a lot out of me, I’ll confess. BUT finally I made a hard stop at TV after school, Annoying for all, and sat him down to go over small bite-sized lessons with Ash's leveled books. Slowly, it came together, and over winter break, we saw an explosion of confidence. Ash started reading. Like struggling through words, using phonics skills, reading, and rereading. You see, what Ash needed was repetition.

  • I understand that my readers have jobs, for the most part, and work is grueling and a lot. I get it. Let me level with you. Literacy IS the way to intelligence. If you want your child to do literally anything in this world, they need to read. Even if it’s in the trades, they need to be able to read a contract so they are not taken advantage of. It's known you’re tired, but the moment you make reading a priority is the moment your child starts to succeed. So please pick up a book, before the iPad, or the remote. It’s for sure not as fun, but the payout will come.

• Finally, Be the Cheerleader, Ash needed a little parade. Most times, and why the hell not, Ash was working hard! Be obnoxious, be loud, and be super freaking proud of the work they are putting in!!! It’s not easy, remember what I said about babies, they’ve had 5-9 years on this planet. Going from a sweet, cuddly blob to a full-on, functional lawyer-level bedtime negotiation.

  • This means giving them points for ice cream after reading 4 books, posting their tests on the fridge, bragging to anties, and grandparents about their progress, BE IMPRESSED, and make reading as important as making that game-winning touchdown or dancing their sweet tooshies in the recital. Reading should be the most impressive thing they accomplish. That’s my hot take.

Check out my Instagram for loads of free mini lessons on how to practice @woven_reading these simple things, but most of all, go read with your kids for the love of Pete.

You can read my book! THE MAGIC PEN: The beginning. Go ahead, it’s great, and it rhymes.

Routine in your child’s reading sphere is the only, and I mean only, way to get them to read at a proficient rate. You can teach them how to read the long /e/ sound once, but the only way it will stick in their cute little brains is if you practice.

Think of it this way, you’re trying to learn a new skill, piano, do you look at a note and then immediately play Beethoven’s sonatas, no. You have to start from the C position and start to slowly learn each note, and practice them together over and over. The only way to guarantee that you will do this is to make a routine. Teachers know this well because this is the only way (besides coffee) to survive a day. Kids need to know what’s next, it’s how they make sense of their world. So when you think about reading with your kids, at home, and helping them get better, routine is the best way for them to keep working on their reading skills.

Let’s talk about what this looks like.

I’m going to give you three scenarios, and we’re going to fit where reading can go into them.

Scenario one:

You, the caretaker or parent, have a full-time job that gets you out the door at 6 and back home at 6 pm with your kid. Your child likes to sleep in and watch TV right when they get back from daycare, or after school. You may also have sports right after this, and you get home at 7 after eating fast food each night. You are barely sneaking by, so when would you fit it in? Here’s my suggestion: Reading in the car, even if this looks like your kids are following along with an audiobook, or reading out loud to you there, have them always do this. There is no music, except on Tuesday and Thursday, but on the other days, you are doing some sort of reading. When they get home right before bed. This is the best time. I read a book once that said this is when boys’ defenses are down, and they get really good at talking about their feelings at this time. So, find a book that fits with a particular struggle they have and read about it. Does this mean bedtime will take longer? Yes, most certainly it does. But you will not regret reading each night to your child, or having them read to you. Another way to sneak it in is during dinner. If you happen to make dinner at home or bring the takeout home with you, read right after you eat.

Scenario Two:

Your child wakes up at the butt crack of dawn. GREAAATT but for real. If you can stomach it, then get up with them and do some reading. They are fresh and likely slowed down enough that you can get what you need to get across. This way it’s already done. If you are not a morning person, lay out what they could work on the night before and ask them to work on this without you. Get them a favorite book for them and have them read alone, or a post-it that they can write words that they didn’t get.

Scenario Three:

You work from home, or are at home with your kids all day. HERE is a schedule that I wrote up for our summer. It’s simple, but after they get to watch some PBS kids, then we sit down around 8-9 and do some reading and math time. I got a workbook for the summer for them to work through, but ultimately, this is what they will be working on. If your kids do better in the afternoon, make this your reading time. We also sneak in a family book after we eat, if we eat dinner together that night. Something we can all read together and enjoy.

Regardless of what your schedule looks like, routine is a must. Your kids have less time to complain if they know it’s coming. Will they still complain… yes, they are children. But they will eventually (1-2 weeks) know what to expect and fall into line. You can live life too, if you’d rather get ice cream, but for the most part, keep the schedule. You’ll thank me.

If you want to borrow our schedule or want a print off for yourself, I have one in my store, It comes with a link for if you have CANVA and want to tweak it to look like yours. (After purchase) Trust me, you’ll truly thank me one day.

Why does it matter?

Comprehension, as mentioned before, is the end game of reading. If we can’t understand what we read, it really is kind of a huge pain in the A** to learn, right? So we read to understand, to be changed, either by story or understanding. If you go deep into the understanding in a nerdy way, reading is how you jump to survival. Outside of reading for fun, reading helps you not to be manipulated by the world. Either by reading about who you will vote for, or a contract about being sold to the Yankees (Rookie of the Year, anyone?) Reading is important, truly the scary side of reading is when kids get to the age of 10 or 4th grade, the teacher doesn’t focus their time on teaching your child to read, they focus their time on USING reading to learn. Think of handing them a history article, then giving them a quiz later. They have to regurgitate what they read with proficiency. This is a big deal because prisons are full of illiterate people. (about 70%) A child is more likely to give up on school and choose a life of crime if they can’t read. This is scary, of course, if you are here on a reading website, this likely is not your child’s story. However, the point of reading is to be able to talk about what you read, and really understand it’s meaning.

What can you do?

Asking questions is hugely important, this also means talking about the text. We need to teach our children to stop and ask questions while reading. Ways to do this yourself and with your child are to place Post-its in different areas throughout a book and have a list of general questions about the text. HERE is a list I’ve created for you. Connecting to emotions is key. A child isn’t going to be interested in the difficult part of reading if they truly don’t connect to the text.

Now, we’ve all been there, trying to read a book we hate, trying to connect, and then really wanting to give up. So find a way to connect your child to the text. Do they identify with the bad guy more than the good guy? We’ve all been there. Is there a part of the book that is similar to something they’ve read or ignites a memory they have? Have they ever felt similarly? Would they have handled that problem differently? What new facts have they learned? If they love non-fiction, what new facts did they learn? Do those facts contradict other facts they know?

If they are little, have them just retell you the story. Place of the story, characters, problem, and solution. These are the best ways to get a simple understanding of their knowledge of the text.

How do they connect to the text deeply??

Books are deep, for the most part, so how can they connect your child to the text, emotionally, from memories, to their life, to what they want out of their future?

What are some interesting questions you’ve asked your kid, and what hilarious answers about the text did you get?

Fluency, at its core, is when your child can, for the most part, read smoothly and attack a word with confidence. So they are not focusing so much on sounding the word out, instead of just not understanding what the word means. Doing both sounding out and figuring out what the word means simultaneously would make their head spin. Here’s how we avoid this. Separate vocabulary and fluency. To push fluency, you’d be focusing on a type of text that is slightly above their skill level to push their reading skill training past their ability. With vocabulary, we want our kids to be learning new words.

Why does this matter?

You began your journey with vocabulary when you had a baby, to begin with. You’ve been teaching them words, day in and day out. This has been helping their vocabulary skills from day one. When a child learns words, they stash the word away in their mind.

Let’s say your child loves cats, you read books about cats, you visit your local shelter to look at cats, and the zoo. Like only a kid obsession can take over, you let the cat phase bloom. So, when this cat-loving kid goes to kindergarten, they come across the letters C A T and stretch out the sounds, and BING, in their brain, a lightbulb goes off, a connection is made. They say to themselves, “ I know this word, I used to be, when I was a little kid of 3, obsessed with cats!” Just like that, they have that vocabulary word in their wheelhouse forever. This is really no different from what you’re doing when they are older. We want our kids to be using big words so they can get their message across when speaking but then fully understand what an author is trying to say in their writing. Many authors spend hourse picking the right words, to convey the greatest depths of their message. We want to make sure your reader is grasping at their fullsest the message.

How do I help?

If you have babies, speak to them, at times, like an adult. Tell them the names for ALL THE THINGS! This will help their reading in the future. If they are older. I’ll link a video on how to make a vocab fold-out. This is an EXCELLENT way to teach new words. Keep a Post-it in their book and have them write down when they come to a word they don’t know. To look up later. If they struggle, say, “What about the words that surround this tricky word, could give us a clue as to what this word means?” Model this, if you are reading out loud, stop when you don’t know what the word is. Reading the classics will make this happen.

Prefixes, root words, and suffixes are such a big game changer for children. When they get into the 2nd grade and beyond, giving them access to this other side of words helps them to truly understand what a word is. I’ll go into this with more depth at a later date.

How are you noticing and practicing vocabulary in your house?

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I follow this rule of thumb; A child uses a lot of brain energy on sounding out words if they are reading choppy and disconnected. This means that the child isn’t actually hearing or taking in the literature. This is an issue because we like to say the point of reading is comprehension.

Fluency will come after great work is put into phonics and phonemic awareness. There is no way around this. If your child can’t sound out a word, there is no fluency to sound the word out better. End of story.

Why does this matter?

Your child needs to practice fluency to get better at reading. period. Fluecy makes reading easier to follow for their brain. So, comphrension comes after reading smoothly so the brain can follow along.

How can I help?

• You can reread anything! ANYTHING! In fact your child should be rereading. The fact we just bust through books and don’t give them another shot is silly. Your child reads, then forgets and moves on, but rereading is totally okay. In fact they will be better readers if they run through the reading again.

• Listening to audio books, this is crutual to hearing what reading should sound like, it’s also like exercising their comprehension brain but without much effort.

• Play fluency pretend. Pretend you’re a robot and read a passage your child can read. Have them tell you how fast or slow to read. This will show them how it sounds when it’s choppy.

• Play reading goldilocks. Tell them to put a thumb up to read fast, and a thumb down to read slow, and a thumb in the middle when you’re reading just right. This helps them see the difference. Now after you go, make them be the reader.

These are simple was to practice. Below are some of my favorite audio stories read by fellow parents. Philip and mommy even showcases my book!

Storytime with Philip and Mommy:

Disney story:

Storytime with K:

Search on spotify or where you listen for Children’s Audio books there are a TON!

Local library for their audio books, you’ll need headphones. Great for long trips.

As in another post you know I lost my mom in November, then a dog, then my youngest goes to kindergarten, and we moved homes, and now the school. It’s loss after loss, grief begetting grief. I struggle, often with God’s plan in all this. The constant stripping away of my earthy comforts. So I’m left with, writing. Something that also makes me feel power, creativity, and then an anvil-shaped sense of powerlessness in my gut. I say this because, being quite arrogant, I was sure Scholastic would be knocking on my door by now about my book. I’ve had some REALLY really close calls and even received an email address from a producer! All too slowly faded into memory. So writing, for the sake of other people reading it, has no power in my life.

My school building is moving, this is inevitable, and no politician truly listens to their people. I’m left with quiet, and time. A hard fact I don’t like. This also means I’m left with writing. Something I can do, where no one will stop me, but myself of course. I’m going to keep going. Here, in my notebook, continuing to see where the family and the pen will go, maybe a silly potty book. I can try.

I recognize, that whoever is reading this, might say, “She sounds quite depressed” and maybe you’re right. Or maybe I chose the wrong time to give up my dopamine addiction to Instagram. Either way, I guide myself daily to God. To make sense of all this, scanning each page of the Bible for this spotlight of revelation of what step to take next. I surmise it’s good I’m trying. My faith has been shattered and built up stronger. I do feel that. But isn’t it humanity to just every once in a while want to see that big win? The one you hold up as your Ebenezer stone and say, “Yea! That’s my God! SEE I told you!” Yet, not this time for me.

What do you do when you feel powerless, how do you gain a step? Does it help, is it hard? Is it small steps, or huge acts of faith? I’m not sure.

The prep

Painting requires an insane amount of prep. Let’s see, there is tape, patching holes, picking the color, matching the color to what will be in the environment, buying materials, laying down cloth, it goes on and on. This is like reading. There is prep to be taken into consideration.

• Learning the tips and tricks of reading

• Getting books

• Making flashcards

• Setting up activities

• Reading every night

The action

With painting you’ve done the prep, your corners are covered with blue tape, and you’re ready to paint now. Dipping the brush in the goo that could ruin your floors, you take special care to slather the paint in the right locations. This is tedious, careful work. You have to pay close attention to the mistakes being made, or about to be made. The same is true when teaching your child to read. Watching them read is, frankly, boring at times. Your mind could wonder to the chores left to be done. Keeping a close eye on the reader is important. They need to be congratulated, guided, and pushed at times. These little moments, one bead of paint on the wall. You add little by little to each drop of paint, and the wall is eventually painted. Each reading session with your child is one drop of paint, on the wall.

• reading daily

• stopping at hard words and slowing down

• remembering to read fluently

• remembering to switch vowel sounds if it doesn’t sound right

• finding the right book

• asking the comprehension questions

• learning new words.

The result

After many strokes, many up and downs with the roller, and reapplications, you’ll stand back and see the result. Your wall is painted, the room is done. The same is true of when you settle yourself in next to your child to read, and they take off. You can see the labor of your time, and its reward. In this moment a masterpiece presents itself. Their mouth moves with ease, as their eyes float over script that used to be foreign. It’s truly a thing of beauty. In this magical moment you can sit back, and stare in amazement thinking, “We did this together”

• A human who has the special power to go about the earth, and decipher its script.

This metaphor is meant to remind you that reading is not easy as a parent or fellow reader on your child’s journey. It takes prep, action, THEN result. So take heart. Don’t give up and remind yourself that this is a drop of paint on the wall. You will see the result one day. Keep at it.

But, here we are months later and I’m no J.K Rowling. (this is my out-of-touch millennial mind working overtime here) The amount of confidence and self-loathing I have is astonishing. Now, I realize how silly this sounds to those fellow authors who have been at this for much longer than I have. I get that, this is my account of how this business really kind of sucks.

First, I’ve contacted many podcasters, fellow authors, reviewers, and experts daily. To either get ghosted or once a male podcaster brought up his member during a meeting, ( ** Eyeroll, It’s not that kind of Pen book) or reminders of how saturated the market is.

I’ve had amazing connections too. SO MANY helpful authors of different genres and similar who have given me tips! Amazing tips I’ve followed. Let’s call them seeds because I’ve planted a lot and I have no idea if anything will come of them. Going out there alone is not for the faint of heart. It’s pretty discouraging, frankly to be out there all the time. My journey didn’t start here, at all, I started by trying to use Instagram for my reading strategies, three or four years ago I forget, that’s gone nowhere (well 560 followers) but I’m not willing to sell much, or post every day, or dance or likes so here I am. Discouraged.

We’re moving so I’ve put all this on the back burner for a bit. In the new year, I will focus more on writing more books, and maybe figure out how to illustrate myself to save money. Not sure what the purpose of this post is, but to show you my heart here. Cause DAMN, this shit is hard.

** Like and subscribe for more content not much like this** she says, sarcastically.

Life happened, jobs, dogs, babies, boredom, and eventually loss. My mother was diagnosed with gallbladder cancer in September of 2021. During this time we move through life as someone who hears that C word. Finally in October of 2022 treatments aren’t working, and the inevitable is approaching. I sat down in January of 2023 and decided it was time to write this story. My life outside of my head was a mess of grief, painful phone calls, and generally not fun. I picked up my pen and started writing something to take my mind off my troubles.

How many of us use writing as an escape anyway?

I had to get my story out. I wrote a draft, then wrote another one, took out some complicated details, and handed it to a friend. I’ve worked with kids so I know they can be brutally honest. When she said her kids, including a tough credit, liked the book I knew it was something. My next round of critics was my daughter’s kindergarten class. I read them the book, from printer paper, without pictures. They were silent. Which I can only take to mean they loved it! Or their teacher did a great job with classroom management. I’m going to assume both! Round 3 was getting an illustrator. Although I love to draw I am a very hard critic and why take all the fun from someone who can do it? After many submissions and another round table with my kindergarten critics. I had an illustrator.

Then November, 2023 arrives. My outside world catches up with my inside world when my mom passes away. I’m mostly done with illustrations, but she never gets to see my finished product. The most I can do is a dedication page. Nothing like crying in the library when writing that. I think the worst part for me, is that when my finished product arrived from Ingram Spark, and I got to hold it in my hands I didn’t have excitement. I had devisation. It’s hard to be proud of yourself when you’re mom can’t share in it. What I hold onto is my faith that she can peek down from heaven and share in my joy and that she heard me read the story and saw some initial illustrations.

Where am I now?

Now, I write some more installments, try to get people to buy my book (groan), and know she’s just looking down cheering me on from further away. I think that writing my children’s book was cathartic for me. Bringing me out of my world for a minute to take a break. I was able to have something big I was controlling when I felt out of control and that was life-saving. I’ve come to grips now with the lack of ability for my mom to see my finished product. And I think “Hey, if God can hang the stars, and rise from the dead then why can’t Mom share my happiness.” that gets me by.

Phonics is taking the phonemes we’ve talked about here and attaching them with letter shapes. This is why step one is so crucial. We want to get the kids comfortable with sounds before we move on to attaching a shape to the sound. In my opinion, we don’t want to get ahead of ourselves by jumping straight to letters because it can get overwhelming.

Why does this matter?

We want to get our kids simple confidence because we throw them to the letter wolves so to speak. Phonics is a very large animal, because of the nature of the English language. If this is the method of reading you’re teaching. American English is a hodgepodge, like its people, of different cultures. This means you have Latin, French, German, and many other rules at play with just one mode of language. We want to simplify this large language as much as possible. This also comes with the importance of not overwhelming you the teacher.

The soapbox I’ll jump on is that most of our letter sounds do not say the name we’ve given them over the years, like the letter S. S has two sounds, and at the end of a word, it says a sound like a Z. in a word it can share the sound that C can make, like a snake. So why in the world do we call it “ES” beats me?

Okay, tell me more

This is why doing simple activities makes a world of difference when setting up this reading foundation. Movement and kids are key. According to some research, adding movement to language increases learning by 90%. Why? In our brains, our nerves like to make connections to solidify what we are learning. It helps the lesson become stronger. When we give our brain a movement such as tracing letter shapes in the sand and we feel this with our fingers and say the sounds with our mouth, we’ve given our brain two connections. Just like that the letter has a better chance of sticking in our brains.

This is where you come in.

How can you do this today? Simple, take some shaving cream (or paint, sand, or a maker) show your child one letter, and say the sound or sounds. Slowly, and I mean S L O W LYYYY we want them to be thinking about how the letter they are looking at makes a sound in their mouth. This is like language math SOUND + LETTER SHAPE = READING (Check out this article)

SOUND + LETTER SHAPE = READING

So grab some shaving cream, show them a letter, and say “This is a letter B it says /b/ I push my lips in and together, and I push some air out of my mouth and add a little voice so my vocal cords vibrate. Watch how I write this letter, I go down then I make two bumps, now I’m going to say the sound when I write the letter.”

If you have an older child, then have them practice their sight words, larger letter chucks, like /ough/ or /ing/ silent /e/ words. The more they practice the more they will make brain connections and reading will become their own.

If you’d like a cheat sheet for letter sounds, here is a flash card I’ve made. If you also want to make it cheap and easy ( which I prefer) then take some notecards cut them in half and write the letters on the side in upper case, then lower case.

Thanks for reading, I hope this inspired you to work on some phonics with your kiddo today!

Phonemic Awareness. It’s a fancy name, not something to be scared about. Phonemic awareness is taking the sounds (Phonemes) that each letter or letter combination is made of and manipulating them. Formally to Reading Rockets

“. . . individual sounds are called phonemes, and children who know about the connection between a letter and its phoneme have an easier time learning to read” (Reading Rockets, 2012).

Phonemic Awareness or P.A. is an important first step because it separates the letter shapes and the sounds. We’re starting from a place most kids are already doing, speaking. Most babies begin by making noises. As caregivers or parents, we take those noises and give them purpose and structure. Let me give you an example with the word Cat we can do a lot of P.A. following this example:

Finally, change the /s/ to a /b/ (substitution)

bat

Take away the /c/ sound (deletion)

sat

Add a /s/ before the word (addition)

scat

Break it apart (Segmenting)

/c/ /a/ /t/

Put it together, (blending)

Cat

START HERE!!! What is the first sound? (isolation)

/c/

Here you took one word and went up and down from Isolation the simplest form of P.A. to substitution the hardest.

Okay, That’s great… Why does this matter??

Your child will learn to read faster when they start with Phonemic Awareness. How do I know? I did this with my kids. It takes the fear out of looking at a letter, basically a scribble when they start, and gives them the confidence to say “Oh B says /b/ like at the beginning of bear. got it!”

So pick a word and practice. Another great thing is to rhyme, the most amazing way to be a phonemic awareness pro!

If you’d like to head to www.wovenreading.com I have some pamphlets in English and Spanish that help go into more depth. English PA pamphlet Spanish PA pamphlet

You may be saying “This is too good to be true.” Well, I’m all about honesty. It is and it isn’t. It isn’t because it is simple. It is because it takes time, consistency, and patience. What in life truly is a snap of a finger? Besides maybe a classic dirt and worms recipe. I digress. When you decide you want to help your child read, you’re committing to practicing daily. This could be as simple as reading to them, to as complicated as sitting down and walking about the sounds letters make.

It’s up to you, the level of effort you want to give because this is asking something of you. But you knew that when you googled “How to help my kid read better?” So let’s get started, shall we?

Step one: Phonemic Awareness

This is the first step, not Phonics. If you’re a 90s kid like me this gives your trigger pains. Phonemic awareness is an early reading skill that can be done with your eyes shut. It involves manipulating sounds in words. This skill does not require looking at the letters. Simply you are teaching that words are made up of several sounds together. We can pick out sounds in different positions of words like beginning, middle, and end. For example /c/ /a/ /t/ beginning sound /c/ said like a letter K. When we teach our children to mess with our manipulate sounds they gain confidence with words.

Step 2: Phonics

This one should sound familiar. Connecting the phonemic sounds to their letter shape or the letters that combine to make this sound. Here (with English) we’re going to have to do some memorization. I’m not talking sight words, I’m taking sight sounds. Once your child sees the letters together /ee/ together rhymes with tree and three we’re on the reading train! Things get complicated when we move forward with sounds like /ough/ which technically has 9 sounds (Come on English, what in the world?)

Step 3: Vocabulary

This is tried and true. New words, old words, prefixes, affixes. Think of high school literature class when they tried to sprinkle in some Latin. Here we will be teaching our kids new words and connecting to old words we have already taught them. The trick with this is so simple, reading promotes the use of new words. When you read to your child you are exposing them to vocabulary. The most amazing thing to see is when your child is reading, they come across a word they’ve never read before, then they stretch it out, and BOOM it clicks. This happens because they have exposure to this word.

Step four: Fluency

This step comes when your child has the first three skills. Your child has confidence in their phonics skills, can read a series of words smoothly, and know what they mean. Fluency should sound nice to listen to when your child reads. Not too fast, not too slow. The best way to practice this is to read. No duh, but for real. Re-reading a book is also totally acceptable. I think we as parents want our children to read a ton, but realistically, they just need to read what they like at a level that suits them. Let your child be your guide. Many of our boys also want to read non-fiction LET THEM!

Step Five: Comprehension

This is our final step! You did it, your child knows how to manipulate sounds, read words, and new words, and read smoothly. What now? This is the goal of reading. This can be done after every book, even if you read the book to them. Ask questions! All. The. Time. Questions about illustrations, author intention, character’s choices, questions! The reason we do this is so our children can learn something from reading and then retain what they’ve read. Eventually, in school, they are asked to read and then produce knowledge from reading. That’s when school takes a turn.

Click the button below to take you to my shop where you can find the free download with more tips on how to put what you just learned into practice!

FREEBIE HERE

I can teach you how to teach your child to read. I know the ins and outs of reading, and I know that reading is simple and pure. I know that many people, myself included, have had issues reading in the past, and they can be overcome. I can also make it so simple that you need not worry about a degree or if you even like reading yourself.

Here’s the fact, 70% of inmates in prison are illiterate. Around 60% of fourth-grade students don’t know how to read to the standard set by the U.S. government. ( More on this later) This means that the students who cannot read right now, set a life of crime over school since they are so far behind anyway. There is a leaky faucet in the government with reading because well… greed. Who can shut off the valve. Parents.

Enter me, Jordan Hayes. I know and I taught preschool for years so I know how to simplify lessons, in a bite-sized way so you don’t have to hear “MOM DAD! I’m so sick of this reading B**l SH*#!” Just kidding. I’m sure you’re kid doesn’t say that. But if they do I’m here to help. Parents, educators, grandparents, foster parents. Just not dog parents cause they can’t read… yet. I’m sure AI will figure that out soon.

I’ll be updating my stack, with simple reading strategies. You’ll notice they mirror my blog for good reason. I’m a mom, and I don’t have time to write multiple things.

bye for now.