A thought on learning to read

I go to a women's Bible Study every Wednesday morning while the kids all go to their own classes.

A few weeks ago one of the women in my class, who speaks English as her second language, was reading a passage to us out of her concordance. Twice she hesitated on a word, and the woman sitting next to her leaned over slightly and simply said, "tabernacle," or whatever, and then she continued reading.

It occured to me how thoroughly obnoxious and weird and condescending it would have been if, instead, that woman would have said, "Okay, what does it start with? Okay, so what sound does T make? .... okay, now what's the next letter? ... how can you tell if it's a long a or a short a? ... okay, now put them together ....."

But yet people do that to kids all the time when they're learning to read, or just hitting an unfamiliar word.

Just something to think about.