I love the book,
"Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons." It's a fantastic book. It's how Nia learned to read. It's how my sister's kids learned to read. Josiah and Nico are doing great with learning to read from it. Highly recommend it.
So for the past couple of years I've been working with individual people here in Haiti (mostly they've been on my staff) with teaching English. Hugues understands a lot of English and really can speak quite a bit of English, but his grammar and pronunciation needed work. So I got the great idea that maybe instead of us working on vocabulary, ESL-type lessons, that we could work on pronunciation. And so I thought of this book because it mostly just teaches kids how to pronounce certain sounds.
So Hugues and I started a few weeks ago. Once you get a dozen or so lessons in, there's a short (sometimes very short) "story" to read that has a corresponding illustration. Before you show the child the illustration, you help him/her read the story and ask a few questions based on the words. You show the illustration. And then you ask some follow-up questions.
For example--
LESSON 18. The "story" says, "That rat is sad."
So the kid reads that and then you say to the kid, "You just read
that rat is sad." What will the picture show? (The kid is supposed to answer that there will be a sad rat.)
And so then you show the picture and ask why the rat is sad. The general idea is that the rat is wet and cold. In fact, all three of my reading-age kids (Nia, Nico and Jos) answered exactly that way. They were convinced the rat was sad because he was cold and wet. But not Hugues. He answered that the rat was sad because he was standing next to a frog. Ahh, yes! Makes perfect sense if you know Haitian people-- most all that I've ever met are afraid of frogs.
Onto another story.
LESSON 24: "This is a rock. Sam is next to the rock."
After the kid reads the story you ask questions like, "What is the little boy's name?" and "What do you think Sam wants to do with that rock?"
All three of my kids answered that they wanted to push the rock down the hill.
And then the book says to answer after the kid answers you, "Yes, he looks like he wants to push it down the hill."
But not Hugues. Hugues said that it looked like Sam was clearing a field to plant crops and he had a big rock in his field and the rock was keeping him from the opportunity to grow food and so he wanted to move the rock.
And so I said, "What would you do if you were Sam?" (All of my kids said, "If I were Sam, I'd push the rock down the hill.")
Hugues said, "If I were Sam I would ask my friends to come help me move this big rock because this rock is too big for me to move by myself. And then my friends would come help me and you can see in the picture that the land is good for growing things, so we would make a nice garden." (It actually seems a bit steep to me, but whatever.)
Let me share one more story.
LESSON 26: "The sock is near a man. A cat is in that sock."
Remember the kid reads the story before they look at the picture. So we read the "story." Hugues looks at the picture and can't figure out why there's a sock on a Christmas tree. So I explain the concept of Christmas stockings and how sometimes people give people presents in their Christmas stockings. (He's actually seen stockings before, just never on a tree... which, come to think of it, I haven't either.)
So the questions.
I ask, "What kind of present is in the sock?" All three of my kids said, "A cat."
Not Hugues. Hugues said, "A bad present."
The next question to read is, "Does the man look happy with that present?" My kids all said yes. But Hugues said, "No he is not happy. He is not happy because someone joke him and give him a cat for a present."
And so I read the final question to him which was, "What would you do if you got a cat as a Christmas present?" My kids all said some variation of the fact that they'd be happy because they love cats, but that we can't have one because Nick is allergic.
Hugues said, "It's not a good present, but I would say "thank you God" because we have lots of rats in our house." ;) (I gotta side with him on that one.)
These seem like really silly examples of cultural differences, but the thing that is interesting to me is that it's not like I sat down ready to teach American cultural values. I was just trying to teach pronunciation. But it showed me that even though something might be BASIC and OBVIOUS to me, doesn't mean that is how everyone sees the world. And it reminds me that if we don't even approach the things that I think are basic and obvious from the same view, how could we possibly approach the more complex, important, and LESS OBVIOUS things the same way?
No freaking wonder why I get so frustrated. ;)
Today, in spite of the many challenges we're facing, I am glad that I am a part of this community. I am glad that I am learning new things. And I am glad that I have a long road ahead of me here in Haiti to learn some new basic and obvious realities about life.
Besides, with room for two cans/bottles, you can offer that as an add-on to your taxi ride.
And so then you show the picture and ask why the rat is sad. The general idea is that the rat is wet and cold. In fact, all three of my reading-age kids (Nia, Nico and Jos) answered exactly that way. They were convinced the rat was sad because he was cold and wet. But not Hugues. He answered that the rat was sad because he was standing next to a frog. Ahh, yes! Makes perfect sense if you know Haitian people-- most all that I've ever met are afraid of frogs.
I wonder who that person is that owned this building. I wonder where they are now. Have they rebuilt? Are they even alive? 
