How it all started

Nobody likes to read

Never wanted to write daily for a blog. I mean NEVER. When they say having kids changes everything, I didn't know they meant EVERYTHING. For the longest time, I blamed my child for making me feel guilty not being able to make her read and excel in language arts. It took me six years to finally realize and admit...it's me...it's in her genes. I'm a 120% visual learner. Her dad doesn't like reading. Why should I expect her? It's like trying to make a monkey fly. Well, "monkey" here is not used as metaphor, it's the year my daughter was born in. 

All right, going back to blogs. I remember the times I tried hard to ask my daughter's language art teacher what I can do at home to help her. I'll do anything! What teacher recommended didn't get me too excited for I was probably wanting to hear something that would work magic. Unless we live in a fairy tale where prince comes out of nowhere to rescue us at the exact time we need him the most, it just ain't going to happen.

She told me everything I needed, but at that time, I sure didn't feel this way. So here it is, the words from the wise:

"I would continue encouraging the 30 minutes of reading. Remember, anything counts, like magazines, newspaper-- if there are any articles she is interested in. Let her look up something on the internet she’s interested in like a location you’ll visit this summer, or read a book that’s related to a movie.  If there is a friend that she could do some reading with, you could let them pick out a book they both want to read and then buy them each a copy, so they could talk about it together. There may be a friend that recommends a book or series of books to her. 

If you have the time, it’s always good to read something with her.  Either you read the book together, a little each evening; or, you both have a copy and talk about it as she reads through it. Hope this helps!"

Poor Ms. Teresa, who gave me all her years of experience in a few sentences, and I didn't think it's all that valuble as if I tried everything she said consistently for years and failed. Instead I keep saying to myself:"But she's not interested in ANY forms of reading!"

Anyway, here ARE the things we tried:

We tried Kumon. Endless questions and answers, pages and pages of boredom. Didn't work. 

Then we tried one on one tutoring. The teacher comes in, has her read a paragragh in 10 minutes, records how much she answered wrong, and they'll do more. Cycle repeats. Didn't work. Well I'll have to confess I wouldn't know if it really works because I expected magic from the $$$ I spent, in a few weeks.

Until it dawned on me from Ms. Teresa's last email. I didn't read with her. How many of the same books did we read together? ZERO! Why? Because I don't like reading either!

Turning point

This fall, my daughter is going to middle school. I started to freak out when summer break started. What if her reading skills drag her down from that ladder she's climbing? It already was in the past. But what if even more so? What if her work load is skyrocketing and she really needs to do things on her own, and I can't even intervene since she will have no time for me? I decided to do something, and hence the book club. I know, after 11 years it finally hit me.

Hope

I posted on wechat, the # 1 social network app in China. I plan to found a book club. Families take turns to lead it. Children ages range from 7 to 12. Let's brainstorm topics and ideas. Some friends responded(By the way, wechat is much more private than facebook. I don't have lots of friends in this private circle.). Some hearted. Some posted comments like "Doesn't school offer similar activites?", " Language needs vast amount of reading", "Age range seems too big.". I laughed, yeah, it probably will end up being 8~11, my son is 8, and my daughter is 11. lol. We started the book club the week after with 6 kids.

Ta-da (The first meeting)

Everyone reads Magic Tree House series. We picked "A Good Night for Ghosts" to talk about. Start simple. Only two families had the book. We had to take turns in less than one week for kids to all finish the book.

The grand opening was at 7:00 pm Wednesday night. Anxious, but excited. I'm talking about me.

Rewind. I actually did do some research on what to talk about. Here are the things I thought valuable to share.

• Play a card game to share kids' understanding of characters, setting, plot (exposition, complications, climax, resolution), theme, and literary techniques
• Go over vocabulary.
• Do some fun activities that relate to the story. 

We Designed and made ghosts using salt. Boy, that's a lot of salt we used.

Kids loved it. Parents loved it. I loved it.

Then a parent said:"It's great. But we can't do it." God give everyone different gifts. It's easy to assume others can do what we do. It only took me a second to make the commitment. I'll do it!

From then on, we met every Wednesday at my house. Six kids, and lots of snacks.