Jon’s reading programme, as designed by Tami, works like this: each day Jon reads two stories, and on a day when he can read the first one comfortably with no meaningful errors (and/or corrects himself on anything significant without assistance), he “moves on” from the first story and he is introduced to the next story. Leapfrogging, basically, with one familiar story always there.

Tami has had a plan for Jon’s reading for the past three years, and Jon has been up to the challenge. But Tami hurt her ankle badly in March, and was away for about 8 weeks. Despite the best efforts of her assistants, there hadn’t been much reading at school, and we did what we could on the weekends. When Tami returned at the end of May, Jon was about 120 pages short of her target for the year.

We undertook to read with him in a second session daily, which was pretty intense: previously when we’ve tried it Jon just couldn’t see the page–his eyes were tuckered out for the day. But in May and June, Jon responded well, fighting exhaustion, humidity and hormones, and his first bout of academic pressure. Towards the end, he was so strong that he would move on in both stories at the same time. And last Monday, he completed the 120 pages, and finished the Grade 2 reading program, and started the Grade 3. With two days to spare. Yay, Jon!

(He’ll get a little break during the summer, but Tami has supplied us with lots of reading and spelling materials. No backsliding!)