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Daddy wants to see son reading

Our Almost 8yo. enjoys watching cartoons,playing his ds most of the day and hubby sees that as" just hanging around like a teenager but the only thing missing is the beer"
So...he wants to see some results. Yesterday i wrote 3 sentences and helped Lukas read them. When his father came home from work i asked Lukas to read them to his Daddy. He did and his daddy said: good Lukas your reading huh?! That's good Lukas! His dad's comments have made me feel lazy with our son's education. Do you think i should have some worked on papers around to show his dad?
Now, I too have been having some problem dealing with Lukas watching t.v. all day. I offer to do other things,go outside and stuff but he wants to watch from morning til night. So i can understand how his dad is seeing all this.
Like right now dad left to go shopping while Lukas was watching t.v. and when he returns he'll see him doing the same as he left. Should i be offering more,different things to do? Any ideas? I will go into more detail if asked.

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Permalink Reply by Sandra Dodd on September 1, 2009 at 2:50pm: -=-Do you think i should have some worked on papers around to show his dad?-=-

No, but I think you should have been talking to his dad more about the things he was learning.

-=- Should i be offering more,different things to do?-=-

Always should have been, since the first day. Go places. Do things. Bring interesting things into the house. Find things related to the TV shows or characters or actors he likes. Mix it up, every day.

Anytime an unschooling mom wonders whether she should be doing more, she should just do more.

http://sandradodd.com/strewing; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Joyce Fetteroll on September 2, 2009 at 7:16am: Doing might be better than asking. Sometimes offers don't sound nearly as tempting as done deals. So plan things to do each day around his favorite programs. (You can ask him when the best times to go are. Sometimes he might be watching OK shows as he waits for a favorite.)

Can you get Tivo or a DVR? Or barring that popping in a tape to record his programs. That can help enormously because it puts the child in control of what and when. I know my daughter felt trapped by the whims of the station programmers who might randomly pop on a favorite or new episode.

Your husband is asking because he's worried and feels helpless to do anything about it. Maybe you could find some other ways for Lukas to interact with his dad that he enjoys doing like email or Twitter. Writing "secret" notes to tuck into dad's wallet or lunch bag. Pack a picnic lunch and take along sketch or scrap books to record what you see or get inspired by. Read short kid friendly poetry and illustrate it or let him dictate something similar. Talk about his favorite TV shows and help him to write or illustrate or create comics of his own episodes. Things like that. Don't think in terms of "worked on papers" but thinking up fun activities that create something physical to share with Dad.

When your husband comes home do you both greet him? I never made my daughter say hi but it just became part of the family culture when I said each day "Hey, Daddy's home," and went to greet him. That can give them a natural way to interact and talk about what happened. (You get to provide the opportunities of at least one nifty thing to mention. :-); ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Erik on September 2, 2009 at 5:19pm: How about reading the television schedule? Does he read the title screens when shows start up? Does he recognize the word "television" or "t.v."? If so, then while it isn't exactly reading, it is a start.

Most cartoons and video games these days have other related items: board games, action figures, trading card games.

There are video games that will also help with reading. Also, in most games, you can turn on the sub-titles so the speech is also written on screen.

You can also play word games like banana grams, scrabble, boggle. You don't have to play the game so much as play with the word tiles. Spell funny things like "butt" and "tub" and together they're a palindrome "butttub". What's a Butt Tub anyway? Poo Poo spelled backwards is oop oop. These are silly and fun things to do (oh, and educational!). And little boys love silly fun things, especially when they involve excrement and farts! Show him how to spell fart!

And like Sandra says - do strew!; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Valerie on September 3, 2009 at 8:34am: http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200807/google; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Heather Greek on September 3, 2009 at 5:03pm: Holy crap I thought it was me. I don't read books anymore. I was having a hard time remembering the characters and plots. Halfway through this article i stopped...thought about book marking it and i'm having a hard time finishing it. the same with long threads!

Valerie said:
http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200807/google; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Valerie on September 4, 2009 at 6:55am: I just remembered that right about this time every year, like a nervous tic, my husband would start feeling some residual pressure simply because it was "school time" for the majority.

Our three youngest boys picked up a lot of reading via wow, runescape, and the like. While my then 8 year old may have struggled a bit with a book like Grizzwold the gap closed quickly as he made more connections. A tee-hee and a ha ha with swear words has progressed to the use of euphenisms (although he may say eupha what?).

My kids still play with boxes and have vivid imaginations. I always thought they didn't care for fiction (in the realm of books) because of that. They always prefered a science or nature magazine. Hmmmm.; ▶ Reply to This