Math vs. Reading

Today Amelia told me that math is better than reading. I almost rang the neighbor’s door and asked if they wanted an adorable 7 year old. That is how upset I was.


Amelia has become obsessed with Dr. Seuss books. As a kid, I wasn’t a fan because I believed Dr. Seuss lacked substance. He wasn’t really telling a story with a plot. He was rhyming and that bugged me.

For the last two weeks Amelia has read fox in Sox and One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish a million times. She is fixated on becoming a perfect reader. She gets this way a lot. When the kids in her kindergarten class started hula hooping she begged me to buy her one. She started practicing every day until she was able to get to the point where she could run laps around her schools playground while balancing a hula hoop on her hips. I am not exaggerating, she really did this. It was the same with the piano. Amelia is in a combined classroom of 1st and 2nd graders. The kindergarten teacher in our school provides piano lessons for kids in grades 2-8. Amelia is not old enough. Some of the kids in her class are. She has figured out what they are learning on the piano and has demanded that Aaron teach her. She has perfected the few songs she knows that the 2nd graders can play. I don’t get it. I have always been fine with being mediocre. Amelia, on the other hand, is not.

Back to English vs. math. I am afraid Amelia is taking a mathematical approach to reading which kills me. I don’t believe she is really listening to the story being told. Instead, she sees reading as a puzzle to decipher and perfect. That part she loves. I am alarmed by this. But, I am hoping with age this will change. I am going to continue to do our nightly bedtime stories in the hopes that she will cherish books.