My Approach to Sex = My Son's Approach to Reading

If your child doesn’t like to read, has to be cajoled to pick up a book and the home reading was a fight throughout the school year then a two month break from it all might be just the break both kid and parents need.

But before you take that break, you should know about the Summer Reading Slide. 

Children who do not read over the summer will lose more than two months of reading achievement. 

C Stands for Catastrophe

February 14, 2013

Grade 1 to 3 we learn to read, from grade 4 on we read to learn. I have written about this a few times, most recently here.

Moving kids ahead before they have a grip on this year's skills defeats the whole purpose of getting up to go to school in the first place...no?

That doesn't mean holding the kid back to repeat the whole year over again, that never made sense. But it does mean identifying the problem and fixing it in the class, with outside resources, a code, a tutor, whatever is needed but it can't be left unaddressed.

I picture it like an avalanche - a bunch of new snow falls on top of old snow that hasn't had a chance to solidify, the new snow can’t get a grip and begins to break apart, there is nothing under it to support it and the slide begins.

It’s not hard to spot the kids who are caught in the slide - they sit in class praying they are not called on. They feel judged and stupid. And it just keeps getting worse. They feel more inadequate, more confused and frustrated every day. The place they go to everyday that promised learning is making them feel dumb.

This quote comes from Philip Regier, a dean discussing university courses, but it applies to little kids too, kids that get moved ahead sometimes with much less than a 70% grip on what they have been taught: 

“It’s the Swiss cheese effect. You can’t have a big hole in your knowledge. If you get a C, you know 70 percent of the material for one course. 

But the missing 30 is likely to be important to passing the next course.”  (more here)

And for the little ones getting their footing it’s reading and math  ...  “Mathematics, for example, is “ruthlessly cumulative” and so missing a chunk of it early on can cause big problems down the line.”  Annie Murphy Paul

It’s like the Renert brothers (creators of the Bright Minds math enrichment program) say; Moving kids ahead before they master the material is like giving someone a two wheeler after they spent a morning on a tricycle and fell off it half the time. 

But, unlike school, if they never master riding a bike they can park the thing forever and get through life just fine without out. 

Kids Ashamed to Admit They Can't Read

February 3, 2013

Being able to read seems as much a given in today's world as being free of the dangers of polio. But where science can develop a vaccine to guard against disease, children are still moving through the grades without having mastered the ability to read. What happens to them is no less crippling than polio.

As a literate Canadian it would probably shock to you know that 48% of adults in this country over 16 are functionally illiterate. (Source: here)

That means one out of every two little kids might be joining those staggering statistics. Is it your kid or the one beside them? And how it is that either of them are at risk in 2013? 

Why? Because kids don't tell anyone they can't read. In one heartbreaking story a little boy put all his efforts into convincing people he was deaf rather than admit he couldn't read. 

How is possible that a child thinks it is more productive, less ostrasizing, more beneficial to pretend he can't hear rather than admit he can't read? Shame.

No matter how smart a kid may be at math and science, or talented as an artist, or fabulous on the playing field, not being able to read well - or at all - creates a perception amongst his peers that he is dumb.

From kindergarten to grade 3 we learn to read. From grade 4 and on we read to learn. 

There is no more instruction. By the time kids get to grade 4 they are expected to be able to learn new subjects and explore new ideas and concepts while reading - AND - they are introduced to French. 

Can you imagine how hard grade 4 must be if reading is a code you have not cracked? And as if fumbling through one language wasn't bad enough, now you have two? How lonely and dumb you must feel when all the other kids seem to be doing just fine with it? Would your behaviour change? Would you want to go to school? Would you be angry and frustrated?  

Watch this, click here  

If you think your child might be having trouble I have an expert friend who will assess your child for free. She doesn't pay me to mention her, I simply trust her, have seen her help people of all ages. Her name is Lani, her company is Beacon Literacy. Here is the site.

45% of Canadians Are Functionally Illiterate

Originally Posted September 30, 2012

 My friend and favourite sage, Lani Donaldson, owner of Beacon Literacy, told me;  

“From Kindergarten to Grade 3 we learn to read, from Grade 4 and on we read to learn.” 

I had never thought about it in such definitive terms until I had kids of my own and watched as they began their reading journey. Sure enough grade 3 was the year during which the path turned a big corner and when spelling, grammar, comprehension and the love of reading took hold. They had the key to The Code.

At least that was what most of the kids were experiencing but there were a couple for whom the road to reading was riddled with land-mines and detours and frustration and despite that they were pushed ahead to the next grade when, inevitably and sadly, they would begin to fall behind.


That kids are allowed to move on without having mastered the skills necessary to read is unbelievable.  If  children are not proficient in "reading, writing and 'rithmetic" then what is the point?

How critical is grade three? Find out here
Does your child have reading difficulties? Find out here

Dyslexia Does Not Require Medication

Originally Posted January 11, 2012

Here's a story to mull over before you make any decisions about your children's needs. My neighbour's, Sylvia, experience...

Her son Ryan was in grade 2 when he began to say he didn't want to go to school. It came on suddenly and surprised his parents as he had loved school right from the start.  She couldn’t get him to clearly explain why and she worried there might be a bully that he was too scared to tell her about. She asked him but he said no, that wasn't it. So she spoke to his teacher and she said Ryan was doing fine, he seemed to daydream a bit from time to time but all was good. Her gut was telling her otherwise and she pressed but was assured all was good. 

Sylvia told herself not to worry and told Ryan things would get better, it was a new grade, new teacher and sometimes things took a while to feel comfortable.  Ryan said he didn’t feel smart anymore and she did what any parent would do and told him he was every bit as smart as he always was, even his teacher said so.

As the year progressed it got harder and harder to get him to go and the tension spilled over into his reading homework. Anything school related was becoming a struggle. 

Mercifully June came and the year end report card noted he was a bit behind in reading (Sylvia had been told that was expected of boys) his math skills were great (also told this was a boy thing) and when he seemed bored and sometimes acted out that too was the delightful nature of boys. 

They enjoyed their summer but as grade 3 loomed on the horizon Ryan became more and more sullen. Sylvia tried to keep things positive and off they went to grade 3, mom with a hopeful smile on her face and Ryan looking like he was going to the electric chair.

In no time Ryan got into some trouble, acting up in class, nothing major they said but he would have to rein it in. By Christmas the school was getting upset, Ryan was getting a reputation for being disruptive and Sylvia was beside herself.

Ryan is smart. By the time he was 7 he was building his own amazing lego creations and as he took them apart from finish to start, he wrote the building instructions for putting them together going from start to finish. Now, as any mom worth her salt knows, building Lego with instructions for a tried and true Lego factory creation is hard enough, what this kid was doing was downright DaVinci-esque. It was hard to imagine what was going on with him to make him so sad.

Sylvia asked for a meeting and she sure got one. She sat at a table facing the principal, Ryan’s teacher and a school board psychologist to listen as they described her quiet and clever boy as troublesome, uncooperative, disrespectful and quite obviously challenged in some way. They couldn't tell her what the problem was but likely he needed meds and another school, one for kids with his difficulties, but she would need to get someone else to figure all that out as the school had done all it could.

Sylvia drove home in tears. She blamed herself for everything. She hadn't breast fed long enough, she let him stay up too late, she wore too many patterned clothes and they had fried his brain...the list was long. she self flagellated and called me crying. 

She and I talked it out. The problem was only at school and he also got his back up when she tried to read with him - and he wouldn’t even try anymore. A bell went off somewhere and I remembered a conversation I had with a Lani Donaldson, a literacy expert. She told me: “We learn to read from kindergarten to grade 3 and from grade 4 on we read to learn.”

“Can he read at all?” I asked her. “Not well.” she said. 

Maybe that was it. Once reading had become a big part of the overall learning experience he had begun to feel that he wasn’t - as he had put it - smart anymore. 

I suggested she see Lani and Sylvia took Ryan to Beacon Literacy (Lani's house of literacy miracles ) and when she assessed him she could see immediately that Ryan was dyslexic. She worked with the kid and the mom together so Sylvia would know how to help. Lani’s first step was to assure Ryan that he was smart and capable and safe. The work began and Ryan started reading. After that the rest fell into place.

No meds, no special school but Sylvia did move to him to a new school, having lost faith in the other one.


As parents we follow our gut when raising our children and most of the time that is a pretty reliable indicator. But when we sit across from doctors or teachers we often disregard our gut feeling thinking we are over-reacting or being too over-protective, too involved, too mothering or whatever label it is under which we fear we are being judged.

Yes these people are experts in their field but you are an expert in your field too, parenting your children. So if something doesn’t feel right, follow your gut to a second opinion.