The experiences of life, from someone, translated…
My son had always been hyperactive when he was younger, and would not head to bed, until, he’d drained himself of ALL his energies completely every single night, I, being his primary caretaker, often felt too tired to chase him around.
When my child was around two when he’d learned to talk, whenever I’d had the time, I’d sat him on my lap, held on to his fingers, picked up the picture books, and, as he’d pointed to each of the Chinese characters, I’d read it aloud to him, sometimes, when he was playing with his toys, I’d read to him too. Even though, he didn’t seem like he was listening, but, his brain had become a sponge, and started soaking up the things I’d read to him already.
Once, I’d told my son, “Jun-Yi, go wash your hands.” He’d replied, “Clean up the hands, so I can cook”, it was so shocking to me. Ever since, the child who couldn’t recognize the characters can read the words aloud, while flipping through the picture books.
As my child was in his last year of kindergarten, I’d subscribed to the “Chinese Weekly”, and, my son slowly used the phonetic spellings to read, and after he’d read, he’d shared with me the stories, and the comics he’d thumbed across. When he’d entered into the first grade, I’d changed the subscriptions to “Chinese Daily Papers for the Children”, my son could now, read, independently, with the phonetic spellings now. In the second grade, he became taken with “Journey to the West”, and, modeled the Monkey King as if he WERE the Monkey King; in the third grade, he was taken with the Warring Nations, read a ton of the varied versions of the tale, but, he’d still read it for pure enjoyment, once, I’d asked him, if we could give the books he’d read away to someone else? He’d firmly answered, “NO, I’m saving these books for my own kids.”
This overly active child, rather than reading the books for fun, still didn’t focus his mind on his homework assignments, and, in school, while he was sitting in class, his mind was somewhere else, in the stories he’d read already. Acted up in class, wanted all the attention of others, he’d become the main characters of the stories he’d read, to the point that he was seemingly possessed by the stories, he was, the top problematic student of his class. There was nothing else I can do, but to transfer him to another school, and start taking him to school daily, without his playmates, it’d given this child with difficulties concentrating a cleared learning environment.
My child was a changed kid in this brand new environment, everything started from zero. He is now, the teacher’s little helper, the smart child in all of his classmates’ views, and, took up the role of the cleaning master and cultural education helper of his class, compared to the problematic student he was, it’s like he’d become, TWO different persons.
Now my child is in the higher grades of the elementary years, he still doesn’t have any afterschool program, every day after school as he’d come home, he’d done his homework, then, worked on his workbooks, he’d insisted on reading the papers still, and, I’d allowed the newspaper articles to turn into another way of education for him, and, we’d have discussions of what he’d read. Although he’s only midrange in his class in the matter of grades, but, having the good habits of reading daily had helped him become a well-rounded student who knows a LOT outside of the textbooks, and, his character made up for his not doing well on his tests too.
And from this, you can still see how IMPORTANT reading is, it’d helped this kid who was disruptive, who was overactive calm down, and, it’d helped enriched his knowledge base, and, this mom started her child on the reading track, when he was just two years old, by reading the books to him.
Life, the Obstacle Course 