sophibug

Malcolm’s Pit Viper (Trimeresurus malcolmi), family Viperidae, Mount Kinabalu, Borneo

Venomous.

Desert Iguana (Dipsosaurus dorsalis), family Iguanidae, Borrego Springs County Park, Borrego Springs, CA, USA

hello! i am crumb cat!

socials

i brought in a bunch of my books from childhood, and we started having one-on-one reading lessons with the littles. then i went out and bought about fifty more books secondhand. first step was covering the pictures so the kids couldnt guess what the words said and had to actually TRY reading them first. second step was making a list of new words for each kid so we could learn about those words, what they meant, and if the kids were old enough, some of the etymology behind them (because if you can recognize latin root words, it's easier to make connections for pronunciation later on eg. unicorn -> universe).

the kids HATED this. reading was previously the easiest class and now it was really, really hard. but reading class had also previously been the most boring class; their books were ten pictures with a single sentence on the opposite page. we got through it by taking turns reading books the kids picked out from my collection- they would read one sentence or paragraph, then i would read the whole page complete with funny voices, then it would be their turn again, etc. it turns out that if kids are motivated to hear the rest of a good story or a lot of information about a topic they love, they're more willing to struggle.

the kids improved so rapidly that i honestly almost cried a few times from how proud i was. one little girl (kindergarten aged) went from being unable to sound out the whole alphabet to reading goodnight moon by herself in two months :'>

all this, though, was NOT my job. my job was to keep the kids on task during their online schooling and prevent them from killing each other or starving. i am not a teacher. the school system was failing these kids to the degree that outside individual reading lessons were necessary, and school systems across the US are still doing this!

if this backwards way of teaching reading keeps up, then in the future it is going to create more issues, not only those kids but all of us. if you are in the US, i would encourage any adult to look into their local public school district. some school districts have curricula that can be accessed through their website. if what you find concerns you, then it's time to head to a school board meeting and bring it up.

it might feel weird or uncomfortable, but i assure you, you are as a much of a member of the community as anyone else. it is not weird to care about the community and the school district.

this is a problem that is already affecting all of us and it's only going to grow with time. but there are things we can all do regardless of our status as a parent, childcare worker, or teacher.

(p.s. i think sometimes these things are assumed to be the fault of a teacher, but it is almost always a school board issue. teacher's don't typically get to decide on the curriculum)