Flashcards

Yesterday Krishna Chandra got a new set of flash cards from the store; the box said it was for pre-k through second grade reading levels. He was so excited to get home, open up the packet and start reading. I expected that he would struggle in the beginning with the new words but what happened surprised me completely. Krishna Chandra knew all the words well, his response time was excellent and he was able to construct sentences with each word. Later in the day I realised that I was underestimating my child and perhaps I should give him more advanced reading material. It occurred to me how stupid I was being, of course Krishna Chandra has a great vocabulary and I owe it all to his wonderful teacher! Not me, someone else was behind all this.

My sister and I first started teaching him from foam building blocks, first vowels, then consonants, numbers, and eventually small words but his greatest interest lied in a special bedtime book that he treasured as his own life. Krishna-- The Supreme Personality of Godhead. He loved looking through the pages of full-color plates, images of Krishna, Balaram and Srimati Radharani along with all Their friends and relatives in Vrindavan Dham. He would ask me to read from the captions below from his favorite images. To this day his favorite story is Krishna killing the Aghasura demon, he loves the imagery and great detail of the snake-demons jaws, teeth, breath, tongue, etc. He gets especially excited when Lord Krishna finally splits the snake-demon's jaws open. Sometimes, when I am startled with something he will chant, "Don't be scared, Krishna will protect us! Krishna will protect all of us!" Nothing could hold his attention as much as his beloved Krishna book. Now I realise, Krishna Chandra owes his entire education and learning unto his real teacher, Srila Prabhupada, who translated these wonderful books for everyone to easily understand. Without Srila Prabhupada's dedication and determination to his Guru's instructions, we would be nowhere. Probably. Because I'm actually pretty lazy and a great procrastinator. Really.