Breakthrough!
Jul. 27th, 2009 09:38 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rhuTani has been resisting reading in Hebrew. I mean, resisting as in finding clever (and not so clever) ways to avoid it in class, avoid it at home, avoid it in shul, avoid it, avoid it, avoid it. We've seen this pattern before --- he's a perfectionist (gee, I wonder where he gets that from) and won't do something if he thinks there's a good chance that he won't do it to his satisfaction. (Hmmm, is there something I should be doing other than blogging right now? Naaaah.) Of course, he's embarrassed by this and fakes it when he can.
When this has happened before (like with reading English) he professes to hate the subject until suddenly his competence and self-confidence converge at a sufficiently high level, and then there's no stopping him. So we've been patient and trying hard not to push.
We have been taking advantage of the summer vacation to change the terms of engagement. We positioned this not as "you have to learn to read Hebrew;" we positioned it as "we don't want you to forget what you already know over the summer," playing along with the fiction that he's already good at it. And instead of reading at a time of day when he's bombarded with other stimuli and embarrassed at making mistakes in front of his peers, he's been reading after dinner (when he's fed and comfortable) cuddling on the couch with one of us, and reading prayer texts that he ought to know by heart by now but at least he knows well enough that he can tell whether he's sounded out a word correctly or not. We've been giving him positive feedback for every word he's gotten right, and patient help for every stumble.
And tonight, finally, finally, finally, the watershed moment happened. He breezed through the first paragraph of the Shema. He was so pleased with himself that he agreed to do the first stanza of Adon Olam, and then he suggested the beginning few verses of Ashrei, and then when H and I told him how proud we were and hugged and kissed him and told him he had ten minutes to play before bedtime, he took out his school siddur (book of prayers) and worked his way through all the birkhot hashachar (morning blessings).
Meanwhile, in the other room, Alissa had sat down at the piano and started randomly banging on the keys. Then she started experimenting a little more carefully. And suddenly we heard "Three Blind Mice" coming from the piano. And she came running in to ask if we'd heard it, and then she ran back to play it again (and again and again).
So we made ice cream sundaes and had a little celebration before bed.
When this has happened before (like with reading English) he professes to hate the subject until suddenly his competence and self-confidence converge at a sufficiently high level, and then there's no stopping him. So we've been patient and trying hard not to push.
We have been taking advantage of the summer vacation to change the terms of engagement. We positioned this not as "you have to learn to read Hebrew;" we positioned it as "we don't want you to forget what you already know over the summer," playing along with the fiction that he's already good at it. And instead of reading at a time of day when he's bombarded with other stimuli and embarrassed at making mistakes in front of his peers, he's been reading after dinner (when he's fed and comfortable) cuddling on the couch with one of us, and reading prayer texts that he ought to know by heart by now but at least he knows well enough that he can tell whether he's sounded out a word correctly or not. We've been giving him positive feedback for every word he's gotten right, and patient help for every stumble.
And tonight, finally, finally, finally, the watershed moment happened. He breezed through the first paragraph of the Shema. He was so pleased with himself that he agreed to do the first stanza of Adon Olam, and then he suggested the beginning few verses of Ashrei, and then when H and I told him how proud we were and hugged and kissed him and told him he had ten minutes to play before bedtime, he took out his school siddur (book of prayers) and worked his way through all the birkhot hashachar (morning blessings).
Meanwhile, in the other room, Alissa had sat down at the piano and started randomly banging on the keys. Then she started experimenting a little more carefully. And suddenly we heard "Three Blind Mice" coming from the piano. And she came running in to ask if we'd heard it, and then she ran back to play it again (and again and again).
So we made ice cream sundaes and had a little celebration before bed.