Pushing the Issue

My wife and I found some word-recognition beginning reader books for our son whose learning to read. The only problem is that he's so smart he memorizes the books almost word for word after only a couple of times through. When I came home from work, he began "reading" one of the books to me. At first I was amazed. Then I noticed that he read two sentences where the page only had one. I've written about this before. The problem is that I still don't know how to handle it. He said he wanted to read the books to me and seemed excited. When I pointed out to him the difference between memorizing and reading, he seemed deflated. In fact, any kind of critique disheartened him, despite also complimenting him on what a great job he does when he reads the words. He really does. I didn't want him to feel so discouraged that he'd never want to read again, so I encouraged him and found ways to point out the good things he did throughout the rest of the night. I even apologized when he went to bed for being pushy when he read to me.  I want to help him see that he can't cut corners or deceive in order to impress people, but that he should really put in the work and feel a sense of confidence and accomplishment. At the same time, I don't want to push so hard that I end up pushing him toward the other end of the spectrum. I realize that is a tall order and pretty deep for an almost four-year old. At the end of the day, although it hurt his feelings at first, he seemed more willing to accept what I said when he saw that I was treating him with an increase of love afterwards.

By the way, our son hasn't been complaining about dinners as much. In fact, he put his dishes in the sink without our asking tonight. We've talked to him a little about it, but we haven't taken any real action. He must have found out about my blog post.

Our little girl is also better at not yelling. She still yells our names, favors, or questions, but when we ask her to use her little voice she stops yelling, though she keeps repeating it softly regardless of how many times we try to answer. But, she also says "thank you" for everything. I guess we're getting somewhere.