Stuart Little

Parker is reading Stuart Little now for school. Each day, his teacher puts a new book in his bookbag and he has to read for 15 minutes. For most kids, they get a short easy to read book of about 10 pages. But for Parker and 3 other kids, they get real books and just read as much as they can in 15 minutes.

Stuart little is the hardest one he's had so far and after just looking it up, I see why. It's listed as book for grade level 3.9. I think it's good that he is being challenged and it's a bit hard for him, but he's having a different kind of trouble with it than I imagined.

He can't remember what happened after just reading it. Like this morning he read a paragraph about Stuart pulling on the cord of a shade and getting wrapped up in the shade itself. He literally couldn't tell me what he had just read immediately after reading it. I made him read it 4 times and only on the last time could he tell me.

What is that about? Does he just not understand the vocabulary (shade, cord?) He hasn't seen one of the shades that the book is talking about so maybe.... Or is he not paying attention, just saying the words? Or is his spaciness now overflowing into reading comprehension? This is a kid that can remember what he did 4 years ago and what street he drove on 8 months ago and what mommy said about a specific thing days ago, but he can't remember what he just read? I find it all very strange.