caycecronk – it really depends on his attitude, but almost never more than 20 minutes. My 3 older boys loved reading and would ‘play games’ with me for quite a while. My youngest, who is 6, tends to have a worse attitude – in general, not just reading! Some days he’s happy and cheerful for 20 minutes, other days I’m lucky if I get 5 good minutes. I try to end the lesson on a postive note with him having success. So if 5 minutes into it I see it’s not going to work, we’ll read a word or two that I know he can read, be all “great job, you’re learning so many words” and we’re done. Other days we hit that mark much later. Some days his surly moods can be changed with the offer of a treat or some quiet minutes of back rubbing/cuddling or reading a favorite book together or a few minutes of outside time or switching to another activity then coming back to the reading. Some days I just end it on a positive note and let him play an online reading game. On Thursday one of the older boys asked if they could play a reading game (from Happy Phonics) with youngest and they spent 20 minutes playing together! New idea for me…..olders working with youngers, and the youngest was SO happy to play with his older brother.
This last boy has totally thrown me for a loop. He’s so different than his older brothers and teaching him to read has been very humbling. I THOUGHT I knew what I was doing, having taught 3 already, but this last one sure doesn’t want to follow my plan so we’re figuring it out all over again!