He was sliding the same page back in front of him.
“We are not moving on until you read it correctly.”
My sons hands were clenched beneath the table. Across the page, every mistake had been marked in red.
“How long has he been working on that?” I asked.
The tutor glanced at the clock.
My son whispered, “I am trying.”
“I know you are.”
I closed the workbook. We ended the lesson and did not schedule another.
At home, he asked whether I was disappointed.
“I am disappointed that learning started making you afraid to ask for help.”
We sought an assessment to understand what made reading difficult for him. We did not assume that one explanation covered every change we had seen, and we kept listening.
For a while, our evening reading had no questions afterward, no stopwatch, no corrections unless he asked.
One night, I stopped at the end of a chapter.
He put his hand on the book.
“One more?”
I started reading.
Halfway down the page, he joined me for a sentence.
I followed his pace and turned the page when he was ready.