Categories: uncategorized
Date: 15 January 2007 15:07:45
I was delighted last Friday when Smudgelet arrived home from school with a merit "for reading" and due celebratory and congratulatory sentiments were exchanged. Then I sat down with his reading record and perused it, to see the source of his teacher's pleasure.
At his school they are expected to read for ten minutes every day and twenty at weekends. Not too onerous for a good reader, but Smudgelet has never been keen on doing precisely what he's been asked to do, even if he actually wants to. While Dad was so very ill in the hospice I had naturally stopped nagging about reading - this being a minor detail in the grand scheme of things, and with Smudgelet staying with my friend M anyway... and wonder of wonders this had resulted in him actually reading every day. He had recorded, as expected, the book title and page numbers, the date of reading, and a comment in which he summarised what had happened in the story so far. Good boy, Smudgelet! The book in question was not one I had read personally and it was interesting to get the gist of the story from his comments.
Then I noticed something interesting. During the three weeks' worth of reading, there were three separate days on which no reading had taken place, and Smudgelet had written the explanation for why he could not read that day. First of all we had "No reading today cos of grandad's funeral". Then, a few days later, we had "No reading today cos of grandad's funeral". And a little later still, "No reading today cos of grandad's funeral". To lose one grandad at Christmas time is bad enough, but to lose three.......
My suspicions aroused, I realised that he had probably read a short book over a couple of days and decided to pad it out to fill the outstanding spaces in his record book. I asked him to bring me the book so I could see how long it was and how much time I reckoned he'd take to read it.
hmmmm.......
hmmmmmmmmm.........
hmmmmmmmmmmmmmm.........
Now, if I tell you that the book he read was a work of fiction, you probably wouldn't think anything of it... unless you'd read the prequel which I've just written here!