My kids attend a Hebrew-language school. Sadly, I don't speak Hebrew. My husband doesn't either. I took some classes and even tried Pimsleur but my vocab is limited to "Hello", "How are you?", "Good morning", "Good night," Good day". We speak English at home with a bit of Samoan and when I force my husband, Farsi.
So everyday for 7 hours the kids are immersed in everything Israel. They've made good friends and my oldest is now fluent. She's also learning to write in Hebrew, and of course that means they read from left to right which makes everything a little confusing for her when she has to switch to English.
So what does that mean? That means I have to take on the responsibility to teach her.
Since she was 3 I have been force feeding her the letters of the English alphabet, the sounds, simple words, much to her annoyance. I have pushed and pushed so she could be on par with the Hebrew and she pushed back. I even got a friend to tutor her. So I relaxed. I got lazy and let it go. I put aside all the books I purchased from Amazon about how to teach your kid to read figuring she wasn't ready.
Until this morning when we sat to say prayers.
She stopped and gazed at her little prayer book and then looked up at me and said: "Mommy, I want you to teach me how to read now because I want to be able to read my prayers." She is now 6. I didn't know how to read until I was 8 (schooled in public school in Samoa, long story).
I looked at her and smiled when on the inside I was jumping up and down with joy. Yes! Let's do this! I'm EXCITED!
Now I just hope her enthusiasm sticks because if there's one thing a reading mama wants to hear, it's that her daughter wants to learn too.
So everyday for 7 hours the kids are immersed in everything Israel. They've made good friends and my oldest is now fluent. She's also learning to write in Hebrew, and of course that means they read from left to right which makes everything a little confusing for her when she has to switch to English.
So what does that mean? That means I have to take on the responsibility to teach her.
Since she was 3 I have been force feeding her the letters of the English alphabet, the sounds, simple words, much to her annoyance. I have pushed and pushed so she could be on par with the Hebrew and she pushed back. I even got a friend to tutor her. So I relaxed. I got lazy and let it go. I put aside all the books I purchased from Amazon about how to teach your kid to read figuring she wasn't ready.
Until this morning when we sat to say prayers.
She stopped and gazed at her little prayer book and then looked up at me and said: "Mommy, I want you to teach me how to read now because I want to be able to read my prayers." She is now 6. I didn't know how to read until I was 8 (schooled in public school in Samoa, long story).
I looked at her and smiled when on the inside I was jumping up and down with joy. Yes! Let's do this! I'm EXCITED!
Now I just hope her enthusiasm sticks because if there's one thing a reading mama wants to hear, it's that her daughter wants to learn too.
So sweet.
ReplyDeleteI was concerned about Aliyah's English when we moved here and she was 6 years old. Two weeks after we landed and on the the third day of school, she brought home a picture book from school and read it to me from cover to cover! When there's a will, there is definitely a way. The English tutoring we did with her while she was in Hebrew school totally paid off - as well as all of those hours on sesamestreet.com. :)
awesome! go tara go! meanwhile, 8 y.o.. really? wow.
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