Reading
Photo by Vlada Karpovich via Pexels A.
Kristy posted a video with her daughter. Four-year-old Emmie was reading aloud as her mother wrote on a small chalkboard. Kristy put her finger to her mouth, pondered, and wrote kind. Emmie read it. “Good!” Kristy exclaimed. “Now — ” She erased kind and wrote book.
“Book,” said Emmie. Kristy clapped. “Okay, now we’ll do a harder one.” Finger went back to mouth, and then she wrote marker. The little girl sounded it out. “Em, ay, ar, k-k-kay, ar. Marker!” The video got fast and slidy as Kristy hugged her daughter.
Ugh, chalk dust, I thought. And then I thought, There’s no way Emmie is actually reading. I heard Teddy playing with some blocks, narrating some strange evolving inner monologue. Why aren’t you reading? I wondered. You’re smarter than her. I looked back at my phone and played the video again. “One second,” I called out to my child from the bathroom.
B.
It was morning, time to be with Teddy and my husband. We ate breakfast. “Banana,” I said. “Buh, buh, buh.” I hoped my son would yell, “B!” but he didn’t. I persevered. “What letter makes the ‘buh’ sound?” I asked him. “B!” my husband said, brightly, and I glared. “I know you know,” I said. “What’s your schedule like today? It would be great if you could start the grocery delivery order.”
“Oh, you know, the usual,” he said.
“No, I don’t know; that’s why I asked.” He looked down at his phone as he rose from the table, carrying the plate that had held his breakfast taco. My own appetite was entirely gone.
“I was thinking of making salads for lunch,” I said.
“Mhm, okay,” he said as he walked toward our room. “I have meetings and then . . .” He trailed off and closed our door, signaling the start of his workday, and I looked at our boy, who had eaten one whole bite. I shut my eyes for thirty seconds. When I open them again, I thought, this child will have eaten another bite of banana.
C.
That night, I was propped up in bed by three pillows, reading an article about teaching your four-year-old to read. The topmost pillow was a marigold shade. It was square and sturdy and new. I wondered if I should also replace the other two pillows as well. C is for capitalism.
Apparently, children should end kindergarten knowing how to read. I flushed with pride, having been a child who read before kindergarten. If only my son could understand that he would be an adult someday, one who could tell people he learned to read before kindergarten.
“What are you reading?” my husband asked as he got into bed. He reclined on only two pillows. It takes all kinds. I ignored him. He turned to his phone. He said something about how things were getting worse. I wasn’t sure what he was referring to. I finished my article and turned to him. “What?” I asked. “I wasn’t paying attention.”
He sighed. “What were you reading?”
“Oh, I was reading about teaching kids how to read.” He nodded. We both gradually and naturally turned back to our phones. Then he scoffed. I furrowed my brow. Supposedly, it was a good idea to try running your finger underneath words as you read aloud to your child. I transitioned to the news; my husband was right — things were getting worse.
“You know, it only took me twenty-one minutes to drive to Astoria to pick up that
