Translated…
My best girlfriend from college asked me what I’d been up to. I’d told her, “Working during the daytime, tutoring during the evenings.” She shook her head in disbelief, pressed on, “How’s that possible? What happens, to your elementary school age children?”, I’d smiled, because the ones I’m tutoring, are my pair of children.
not my photograph…
In our house, the living room is also used as the study. At eight o’clock at night, I’d made sure that the brother-sister didn’t have any problems with their homework assignments, then, the “tutoring sessions” began. I’d let them each choose an article that they are interested in to read, then, pick out the phrases they liked, or couldn’t understand, had them copy it down in their notebooks. My lower grade level son didn’t know enough vocabulary, and would stutter as he’d read aloud, and I’d given him the right way the words sounded from time to time; and, sometimes, the phrases he’d picked out, are really, “bizarre” for instance, once, he’d picked out the characters for “region”, from the Chinese Children’s Reader, I couldn’t understand it, I’d taken the papers from him, skimmed through it, and the sentence was, “This specialty region included places like Chile………”
Sometimes, I’d taken the initiatives to teach them the characters they didn’t understand, and at times, I’d said on purpose, “Oh, I don’t know that one either, how ‘bout let’s, look it up together?” After a short while, my older girl showed clear improvements in her language studies, the sentence structure assignments from her school teacher were no problem to her at all, and slowly, she was able to, develop this interest in reading and writing too.
Other than reading the articles on the papers together, we’d sat together, and listened to the English books on tape too, like the “Loch Ness Monster”, “Nancy Drew”, and “Wizard of Oz”, etc., etc., etc., the latest we listened together was, “The Tale of the Psychic”, about a child who grew up in an orphanage, who’d accidentally become a well-known psychic later on in life, and helped the police crack a ton of unsolved and mysterious cases too.
not my photo still…
We’d only listened to a small portion every day, and my daughter always wanted more, as the story developed to the climax, she’d inquired continually, “What happens next, mom? Did they find the killer or not? Who, is the killer?”, and, I’d, “go to commercial” at the right time, told her, “If you want to know, tune in tomorrow, at the same time.” It’d taken us an entire month, and, finally, she’d heard the story completely, and my daughter was worried that her younger brother would hear the answers, and, whispered the name of the killer into my ears, then asked me if she’d guessed correctly. And, just like so, I’d trained her in the English listening skills department.
“Aren’t you tired, having, to spend so much time, with the children?”, my girlfriend inquired. “To tell the truth, it was, tiring, in the body, as well as in my mind! But, seeing how much progress my kids are making, it’d been, more than worth it. Plus, some say, that the parents’ expiration dates are only ten years, and mine is about to be up, of course, I’d needed to, take the advantage!”
Actually, this sort of “unpaid tutoring”, it’d upped my reading comprehension and English skills too, and, I’d finally understood what Forest Gump’s mom said in the movie, “Life, is like a box of chocolates, you never know what you’re gonna get.”, and maybe, when my kids are old enough, I might change tracks, and start tutoring too.
So, reading to your kids still doesn’t just benefit them, it also benefits you as well, like this mom had shown us, and, by reading to her kids, this mother helped her children develop their critical thinking, reading, AND writing skills, and, she’d gotten closer to them too, so, it’s still, killing multiple birds, with just that one single stone here!
Life, the Obstacle Course 