Meredith’s Musings | Flashcard Frenzy

article by MEREDITH MCKINNIE

Mom tells this anecdote about my reading habits as a child. I read everything, everywhere, and all at once. I left books by my bed, in the bathroom, in my bookbag, wherever I last perched and indulged escapism. I read multiple books at one time, not so much selecting a title by preference as much as location. At the dinner table, Mom quizzed me on the books, certain I couldn’t possibly be reading them all. And off I went – detailing plot points of each title with detail and determination. Reading was and has remained my own private world, where I could interact with people I didn’t meet in real life or better understand those I did. Aside from general knowledge, reading taught me the value of empathy. I tend to read social situations fairly well, and reading, no doubt, helped shape that skill. Needless to say, I prioritize reading above most other leisure activities, and I want that same experience for my girls.

Mom always has a book in her hand. A stack of library books still greets us as we walk into her house, either just finished or shortly to be. And yet, I don’t remember Mom insisting I read. Somehow, I just picked it up, though my sister definitely did not though she grew up in the same environment. I’d love to know why and how I came to value reading. As an educator, I know the importance of reading at grade level and hopefully early. With my daughter who is now 7, I agonized over flash cards and phonics texts, intent on creating a reader. But when I sensed her hesitation or groans when it was time to read, I pulled back. I’ve taught enough college students over the years to know our efforts can produce the opposite effect.

Throughout kindergarten and 1st grade, Wilder and I labored over those flash cards, drilling sounds and troublesome words into oblivion. If they were in that stack, she knew them, but I didn’t see the translation to her free reading. She labored over words we had not previously reviewed, not recognizing the same digraphs in other constructions. “It’s ‘th,” Wilder…c’mon, you know this,” I’d remind her. I could sense her future love of reading floating away with every frustrated utterance from me.

I teach college students for a reason – my instinct to jump in and finish easy tasks does not translate well to tutoring a child. Husband would tag in from time to time, but his patience wears thin with this age as well. I’d get annoyed at his lack of patience that seems to be present in every other situation. I’d jokingly, yet truthfully, tell my colleagues, “Helping a child learn to read is a level of hell that Dante didn’t warn us about.” I clearly was not the person for the job, but here I was having to do it.

In March of the 1st grade academic year, I finally gave up. Wilder needed a break, and frankly, so did I. Wilder’s skeptical looks every time I dismissed flash card time, quickly followed by exuberance once she knew we weren’t laboring through it, confirmed my worst fear. I had been exhausting myself to the effect of solidifying a nonreader. I wasn’t just ‘not helping,” I was hurting the situation. I reached out to her former kindergarten teacher, since retired, with my dilemma. She told me to lean into the break, quit stressing, and let Wilder come to reading in her own time. I trust her so I trusted her advice.

Flash forward to early June, and for some reason, Wilder pulled Beezus and Ramona off the shelf. She asked if we could read it, and silly me questioned her desire for a chapter book. And then the lightbulb went off. We sat on the couch and she started reading chapter one. I challenged her to one chapter, thankfully only four pages. If I stayed quiet, and stifled my huffing when she fumbled a word, she kept going. We read a chapter every day until she finished that book and the next one. Before the fall term, I opened up some advanced flash cards that we never got to and asked Wilder if she wanted to try her hand. She breezed through the 5th grade words. I was astonished – I even cried. If you’ve been here, you know. If we lean back, children lean forward in their own time. Waiting is often the hardest part.