I Can't Read

We are still struggling with reading at our house. Dakota just does not want to read. We sit down to do our language arts program and all I hear is "Read to me." "I can't read it." "What does this say?" He just doesn't want to do it. The other day I got really REALLY frustrated with him. He was pulling his usual, "I can't. Read to me." I was in tears when I threw up my hands and said, "Okay, if you don't want to learn from me, you are going to school. I just can't do this any more." Well, at this point Dakota knew he had pushed me as far as he could. He sat down at the computer and read the whole story. He didn't miss a word. He didn't slow down to sound things out. He read the story smoothly and fluently. I had been had. This little monkey had me convinced that he really could not read when in reality, he just didn't WANT to read. As long as I was willing to read to him, why should he do any work. He still struggles with things like compound words. But I have learned that if I cover up half the word, he can sound it out and then usually he can figure out the second half pretty easily. We are playing some online games to help him figure out these longer words. I wish I could say that all of our problems with reading have vanished. Unfortunately he is still all too ready to claim "I can't do it." But now I am not so gullible to think that he really can't. I am learning the difference between I can't and I don't want to. Hopefully the I don't want to will come less and less often.