Parent Perspective

Last night I was watching Andrew help Aiden read an easy-reader book I checked out of the library. I had an ear out because, as a mother, I'm always curious to see how they interact, but, as a teacher, I wanted to hear what Andrew said to prompt him and how Aiden would respond. Listening confirmed what I already know about most parents - they don't really have a lot in their bag of helpful tricks beyond "sound it out" and just telling the word. Andrew shot me a look when I pointed out to him that letter-by-letter sounding out of the word "way" is "w..ah..yuh" - not going to get you to the end result. I kept my mouth shut after that, thanking God that I do have a spouse that wanted nothing more than to just sit and enjoy reading to and with his child. But it did leave me thinking a lot about what I saw. My husband is a smart man, yet I know from many experiences that this is pretty typical of how he reads with Aiden. On parent nights at school, teachers often give big program overviews and want parents to leave with lots of make-and-take activities they can do at home. But knowing my husband and the hours we work and what we do, I envision that the best thing I would want him to learn is just a few ways to guide Aiden when sitting on the couch at the end of the night having Aiden try to read to him.