Teach a child to read 10 minutes at a time ... it worked for me!

Welcome to Day 12 of the 31 Days series It Works for Me!

As a homeschool teacher, one of the greatest pleasures I've had is teaching my children to read.  

It is tremendously gratifying - one of the best feelings in the world! - to take a child from not even knowing their alphabet to listening to them read a book.  

We've successfully used the Abeka Book Curriculum with all our children; Abeka's phonics approach to teaching reading is sequential, solid, and ... dare I say ... easy. 

But ...

after schooling four children I am here to tell you that all children do not learn the same way, 

and very definitely they do not learn at the same pace.  

Which makes my "easy" statement invalid.  

With some children, it flows.  They get it.  They get it fast.  

Other children ... struggle.  They forget it.  They go oh ... so very, very slow.

If you're struggling with teaching a child to read, take heart!  I've been there, too.  

I was thoroughly convinced that some of my students would NEVER learn to read.  I was resigned to believing their reading would always and forever be halting and slow, and that they would never derive true pleasure in reading a book.  Now, these children of which I speak are avid readers and I love listening to them read a good story outloud.

How do you progress from point A to point B?

10 minutes.

(image source)

When I was at the height of exasperation and didn't know what else to do, 

I simply committed myself to having my student read outloud to me for 10 minutes every day.  That's it.  

10 minutes.

It didn't happen overnight.  

There were days when the 10 minutes seemed like 10 hours ... 

but slowly and surely ... 

they became readers.

Teach them to read ten minutes at a time ... it worked for me!

Best feeling in the world.  

(we think Julian Smith's video is hilarious ... but we would NEVER call a police officer a "pig" ... 
we support our law enforcement officers whole heartedly!)