Well okay, she didn’t, but I almost did. Last year, my son knew how to sing the alphabet but he couldn’t say it or tell me what sound the letters make. I assumed that he would follow in his sister’s footsteps and be caught up to her in no time. This was my mistake.

He is only five years old, not 25. Even though I know better, I was comparing his progress to hers. Never mind the fact that he spoke a lot later than she did, or that she knew the letter sounds when she was barely two (on her own). I got frustrated and scared and thought to myself, “What if the first time was a fluke? What if I can’t do this all over again?”

Then, I had a heart-to-heart with my husband (okay, a lot of them), and he just told me to chill out. LOL. That was pretty much it. He figured if I did it once, I already had the know-how and the materials necessary to help my son to read. I nodded my head but didn’t listen. I was still freaking out inside. By December, I got wise and put the Saxon Phonics aside and we worked on his handwriting, using Explode the Code. He finished books 1 and 1/1/2 of Explode the Code and currently is halfway through book 2. Then, I slowly introduced Saxon again without placing too much emphasis on it and his reading really took off. We managed to finish half of the Saxon Phonics lessons. He’s also reading Collection 3 of the Bob Books. I think that by the end of his summer his fluency should improve, InshaALLAH. Overall, he has done more work than I expected of him and he’s memorizing Quran, which is something that I started a bit later with my daughter.

I made a few videos of him reading this week. Here are a few clips: