Music to My Ears

The honest truth I'm finding is that educational success on any level for children of all ages in an orphanage is as easy to come by as actually finding the Lucky Charms pot of gold underneath a rainbow in real life. Most are not on grade level, can't read, don't know basic math and have no motivation to work hard to improve.

Thus, the idea of reading for fun isn't usually present. So I decided to try something with my boys ages 8 to 12 who I take care of every Monday and for the past 2 weeks it's worked like a charm (no pun intended).

I sat them all down and told them that when I was their age, my mom used to make me and my siblings read everyday for one hour. The TV had to go off, no video games and you had no choice - you went to your room and you read for one hour whatever book you wanted. I went on to tell them that success in school begins with reading because if you can read well then you can do everything else well. Later you can go to high school and college but if you don't learn to read well - you'll never make it to high school and likely won't make very much money to support your family. (They don't know it yet but for an orphan, without any family to support them and help them arrive at a good job in this country or pay for high school tuition - the future doesn't look too bright.)

So when I said, "one hour" they all about jumped out the window. I'm going to work my way up to that length of time. For now it's just 15 minutes. They each pick a book from my bag, sit on their bed and read out loud till I say that 15 minutes is up. When that's done, I let them take turns playing my N64 for about 2 hours. Those boys would try to walk across the room on their hands to play my N64.

But hearing ten little boys reading out loud and giggling at what they are reading in their Captain Underpants books is honestly music to my ears. I love it.