It is very easy to be wise in hindsight

The world's most perfect teenager has been reading aloud to me from the memoirs of a Norwegian/Swedish actor/singer throughout the winter break to expand his vocabulary with Swedish words. All on behalf of his current Swedish teacher who discovered this during the fall semester.

In my naivety, I thought Junior's Swedish was better than it actually is, I'm almost shocked at how poorly he understands Swedish words. He can neither read nor understand many words. It feels like I've been taken back twelve years to when I started teaching him to read.

We have always read books together, Junior and I, but always in English as we have always been told that since he has two 100% ethnic Swedish parents, he must prioritize English. I thought he would get the Swedish language "for free", but that wasn't the case. In retrospect, I realize that we should have read every other book in Swedish.

At first he read from a book his teacher had chosen, but if it became too difficult we were allowed to change. She said quote "The most important thing is that he reads, secondarily what he reads" unquote. After struggling with the origin book for ten pages, we had to switch to the autobiography he is now reading.

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