Oh, Oh, See Me Read!


For a number of years after I retired from Alpine School District in 2000, I read with children at Cherry Hill School. I enjoyed it, and it gave me an opportunity to see young children that could not read well in second to fourth grades that needed help learning to read. Some of them were anxious to learn, and some were intimidated and maybe a little embarrassed to be pulled out of class to go to the trailer to learn to read.
I had a lot of trouble reading up until I was in high school. That may have been one of the reasons that I wanted to do it. I knew of the problems that those that can’t read face. I worked in that program for two years. They stopped the program for some reason, possibly lack of funds to pay for it. All of the people who sat with the children to help the students were volunteers, but the director had a paid position. I’m not sure how much I helped anyone else, but tutoring helped me.
During that time, I worked with four students each year. The next year one of my grandsons was going to school there. He was in the second grade, and I knew his teacher. She was a good friend. It was determined that I should come to school and read with him each day during reading time. He was struggling a little with reading. He was really excited to have his grandfather show up to tutor him, but not that excited to read. We decided that I would read a page, and then he would read a page. He would look through the book and pick out the shortest pages for him to read. It was great. I learned to read better. Sometimes when he was reading, he looked up to make sure I was watching and not dozing off. Sometimes I would say something totally ridiculous, and he would stop me and say, “That is not what it says.”
Lauren, Shelby, Grandpa, Julia
When my youngest was about seven years old and two of my grandchildren were just about a year or two younger, we would read together sometimes. It was a very tender time of my life. They were all really smart and didn’t need my help, but it was fun to read with them. We had a book of Bible stories that we would read from. It was a time of real joy and peace.
There was a person that we had let into our home so he could get an education that betrayed everyone’s trust in him. It caused some problems for our children as well as for my wife and I. I felt like I could no longer hug or hold my children or grandchildren, I didn’t want them to ever get the idea that I could or would violate the trust they had in me. After some time, I felt I could hug and hold them again. I had made just the opposite determination that I should have, but I was really at a loss of how to interact with my own children and grandchildren.
I have been blessed with some of the most wonderful children and grandchildren. In fact, more blessings than anyone could ever want. Sometimes I think that it would be fun to have them all be little again and rock them on my chest until they fall asleep. I do truly love them all.


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Some of My Testimony

Image
November 2019 Carl Stubbs As a young man, I wanted to follow in my father’s footsteps as far as the Church was concerned. He had a strong testimony of the gospel, and he instilled that belief into me by his example. There were many people in my life that helped me along the way. I soon learned that the Church was true, but that all of the people who were members were not always so, including myself. Some of the men that were influential in my life besides my father were Frosty Traasdahl, Karl Snow, Glenn Snow, Jake Williams, Bert Whitney, M J Christensen and Bishop Cheeseman. I’m sure there were others, but these are the ones that come quickly to memory. One that I met prior to my mission was Alma Sonne who was the one that called me on a mission. I have always believed that the Church was true and have known that all of us are not exempt from the temptations of the world. I believe that we are all attempting to do our very best with the abilities that we have been given. As I went...
Read more

The Board of Education

Image
As I watch several of my children who are in education work during this coronavirus, I see them using the internet to reach their students. This writing will probably let you know that I started teaching many years ago. I will help you out with that. The first year I taught in public school was 1968. It was at Orem High School. Carl Stubbs in classroom D-2, 1985 In my room, D-2, the chalkboards were black. Not long after, it was determined that green was a much better color, easier for the students to see. I was not teaching there long before they came in one summer and put in the new improved green boards. They were still called blackboards by the teachers and students. These boards worked just fine for many years. I should deviate from the story of boards to let you know that my penmanship is not good. In fact, it is terrible. In fact, I remember in college I would take good notes, but have to hurry home and type them before I forgot what they said. I had a difficult time...
Read more

Kansas

Image
Written on October 12, 2020 As a young man between eighth and ninth grade, I had the opportunity to go from Boulder City to Kansas to work on my uncle’s farm. I say given the opportunity, but I was really just shipped out. His farm was in the southwest corner of Kansas. Looking back after sixty-two years I realize that my parents, my dad, in particular, wanted me out of town. I’m not sure why, but I guess I was not all that enjoyable to have around. I can’t even remember the name of the little towns they lived by, but I remember the farm. I suspect that my uncle Harry and his wife Inez were not that excited to have me there, but they treated me ok. I was there for about three months. They had two sons who were older than me. Duane was eighteen and Manley was about twenty. An old wheat truck like the one on my uncle's farm I got to work on the family farm driving a tractor, a large wheat truck, and a 1947 Kaiser-Frazer car. After work and on the weekends, I was allowed to driv...
Read more