"The A says (a), the A says (a), every letter makes a sound, the A says (a)". We know this tune very well in our family. It has been sung over and over again in the past several months. If you don't know it, I suggest you check out the "Letter Factory" video in the Leap Frog series. It has been beneficial to our children in learning letter sounds, and laying a foundation for phonics and early reading. You see, I love reading, and teaching reading really excites me. Maybe because I loved to read as a child and had dreams of being a librarian or owning a book store. Maybe it's because my grandmother was a Reading Specialist and had classroom materials in her house that my sisters and I played school with. Quite possibly, it's because I am a third generation teacher and it is just in my blood. Whatever the case, I love it! Needless to say, I am measuring overall success with my Amharic-speaking children in their ability to read. They are both reading English and I couldn't be more proud. Of course, I am not speaking of my abilities to teach them but of their sharp little minds to pick up a foreign language in ways of understanding, speaking, reading, and even spelling it. Can you fathom it? I took 4 years of French in high school, two in college, and I can not speak a sentence of it to save my life. These kids have been here 5 months and are already reading. I am positive that I am not the optimal teacher. I use the old-fashioned way of letter identification, letter sound, then putting them all together to make words. We read aloud to each other multiple times throughout the day as well. There is probably a better way to teach reading to ESL children (please don't send me links), but somehow we are managing without it. What I have observed with my own 4 children (soon to be 5), is there is an innate drive in them to learn to read. Because of my less than stellar teaching abilities, I am convinced that they will learn with or without their momma teacher. There is another reason that I believe this...
This morning I read this Psalm (104:1-7) from the Bible:
"O Lord my God, you are very great; you are clothed with splendor and majesty. He wraps himself in light as with a garment; he stretches out the heavens like a tent and lays the beams of his upper chambers on their waters. He makes the clouds his chariot and rides on the wings of the wind. He makes winds his messengers, flames of fire his servants. He set the earth on its foundations; it can never be moved. You covered it with the deep as with a garment; the waters stood above the mountains. But at your rebuke the waters fled, at the sound of your thunder they took to flight; "
I believe that God wants his children to know him. I believe that he reveals himself through his written word. I believe that in a world where so many doubt in our unseen God, debating that He doesn't exist because we can't PROVE him, he does just that. He proves himself to us through his word. My children are reading! I am so excited because they will one day read their Creator's words that were written just for them. They are on their way to reading, which means they are on their way to a divine meeting with the Almighty God.
I know that my Reading Specialist grandmother, Amy Ruth, would be so proud of our Ruth who is learning to read and will one day read from the pages of the Bible which was her most treasured book.
