learning E's bar mitzva parsha

We've been doing ok on the birchas haftorah.  We found a video and sing along to it and E's been learning it. 

I've had a hard time sitting down with him to learn the parsha.  Not leining; Ari's doing that with him.   It's hard to find time to sit and learn with him.  I guess I'm settling in to the new school year at work and the yom tovim are coming up. 

I realized also I'm having a hard time focusing.  What are our learning goals?

Today I had a conversation with Elazar.  I said that learning his parsha involves 4 skills:

1) leining/trope
2) reading
3) translating
4) understanding

I asked him which skills he is interested in working on and which skills he wants to pursue.  He said that the reading part is the hardest for him.  But he also felt that the reading would be important to have by his bar mitzva.  He figured he'll be working on reading with his father at avos u'banim, so he'd prefer not to do that with me.

He said he likes figuring out what the words mean if I read him the words.  So he doesn't mine trying to translate it and having me help him.  He thinks that's fun.  (And he generously added that when I read it to him, I could read it with the trope.)

So that's the plan.  I read it to him, and together we'll translate.  And then try to understand the pasuk.  We'll see how that goes.