Reading Worries

My oldest daughter, Megan, was reading on a college level before she finished elementary school.  She was reading 630 words per minute with nearly perfect comprehension by the time she entered junior high.

Megan, age 10, in 2006

In my mind teaching reading was a breeze.  I couldn't understand it when homeschool moms would tell me of their struggles in getting their kids to read.  My biggest problem was finding appropriate books for a preteen on her reading level.

Then along came daughters two and three.

I wasn't sure Hannah and Amber were ever going to learn how to read.  Reading just wouldn't click in their mind.  I used several quality curricula, and tried plan after plan.  Nothing seemed to help.  I suspect that for Hannah there was a degree of dyslexia going on.  Amber, well she just couldn't seem to apply what I had taught her  the day before...or the hour before.  I felt like I was trying to teach Dory.  

My forth child, Hayden reads about three years above his grade level.  I never really taught him how to read, he just picked it up on his own and could already do everything I would try to teach him.  I suspect he was listening in on the other kids reading lessons from the time he was a toddler.  

So why didn't the lessons work on Hannah and Amber?  

Well, eventually they did begin to work.  Hannah loves to read now.  She still reads about a grade level behind, but she spends much of her free time reading by choice.  Amber's reading skills have just recently begun to bloom.  She still stretches and strains to grasp what she is reading, but...she is reading.  As a forth grader she is on a second grade level, but she is catching up more and more each day.  

I know now that it wasn't what I was doing that was making my child learn to read (or not).  They are each developing according to the plan God has laid out for their lives.  I need to always do my best in teaching them what they should know, especially if they are struggling.  The results though?  Those are in Gods hands.

"For I know the plans I have for you declares the LORD, plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future" -Jeremiah 29:11 (NIV)

"...all the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be." -Psalm 139:16b

"Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to your life?  Since you cannot do this very little thing, why do you worry about the rest?" -Luke 12:25-26