There are days, like today, when homeschooling has to happen without me. Since Lea is only five years old I usually spend a fair amount of time with her as she tackles her early reader’s books and counts blocks.
She is into big numbers right now and tends to raise her eyebrow at anything lower than eleven. Remarkably, she is taking considerable risks identifying numbers and often ends up with new creations such as four-and-forty sixty. There always is some logic behind it, I just can’t figure out which one.
In general, however, she likes to have time to do her own counting without my cheery presence towering over her. Reading, on the other hand, wouldn’t happen if I didn’t sit down with her.
But today, I simply couldn’t get around to it, not even for two minutes. Instead, I asked Zoë to help her sister. Together they sat down on the sofa and got the Bob Books out. However, less than a minute into it the two got into an immense and messy argument over the letter ‘o’ as in the word ‘son’.
It left Zoë devastated, her aspirations of ever joining the honorable corps of educators crushed. But who said teaching was easy? Even at this point in my career, my understanding of the proper pronunciation of /o/ continues to be slightly abstract.
Whether /o/ as in ‘ox’ or /u/ as in ‘umbrella’ I have to admit, as a German native, I find the argument for /u/ as in ‘ox’ no less compelling. But after hours of attentive listening to the Leap Frog series of short vowels and repetitive trance-like chants of hot-hut, got-gut, and not-nut I have acquired at least a basic, understanding of it.
My kids must think I am a genius!
