al pi darko

Apparently, when we were out last night, Elazar brought the Chumash to Sarah and she did some with him.  And this morning, he brought it to me and we did some more.  He recognized nekudos, even though he didn't remember what sound each one makes, and I showed him.  I showed him the trope, and what sound it makes, and he liked that.  At first he said he did it already with Sarah, but I showed him details that he didn't know.  We did 3 words.

It feels a little weird to do things this way.  Usually, first the student already knows how to read.  Then the student learns prefixes and suffixes via the lashon hatorah workbooks.

But this reminds me of how I had to shift my ideas of how a student learns to read when Chana started to read.  She would read a book that was too difficult for her, and she would skip over all the words she found too difficult.  This was most words.  She would barely understand what she read.  Somehow, she still gathered enough that she enjoyed it.  Then she would read it again, this time with more words.  She read it over and over, each time skipping many words, but each time understanding more.  This goes against all of the classic ways of learning to read.  But she seemed to be progressing, and she enjoyed it this way.