Joyce Fetteroll

I recieved this off list and got permission to post it. My reply is
in the next post.

She just joined the list and is interested to know what you think
about now natural learning to read is. :-)

Joyce

Begin forwarded message:

> Hi Joyce,
>
> My name is Debbie Harbeson and I homeschooled/unschooled my two
> children through high school. They are now college graduates and
> on their own doing very well.
>
> I just recently quit a job (I�m doing freelance writing now) where
> I worked for 8 years teaching reading, spelling, comprehension and
> math in a private center. During this time, I had constant doubts
> and issues about reading and how one learns to read and if it
> really is natural, etc. I always thought reading was a natural
> process but I learned a lot at this job that made me wonder whether
> or not I was right about that.
>
> I just read some of your articles on your site, http://
> joyfullyrejoycing.com/ on reading and found them very interesting
> and hit upon a lot of things I have wondered about for the last 8
> years, taking into consideration my personal experience with my two
> kids and then with the many, many kids I taught at the center.
>
> In the back of my mind, I thought some of those kids I worked with
> might be fine and their only problem was that they were dealing
> with schools and their artificial guidelines about what needs to be
> taught when, etc. Yet, I also became aware of some very
> interesting research into the brain and learned through teaching
> that there are indeed some differences with reading and it may not
> always be so natural for some kids.
>
> Those in reading research point out that speech and language have
> been hard wired into us for extremely long evolutionary time but
> reading and spelling are quite young skills and so it�s not so easy
> to compare them with each other. There are real man-made
> situations involved in decoding our language into symbols on a page
> and there do appear to be some people whose brains are not wired to
> make this an easy task.
>
> For years, I have wished there could be some research done on
> unschoolers and their reading progress. I�d love to see if they
> start out with the same areas of the brain not quite wired up well
> and whether or not they connect naturally as they age.
>
> What I think most unschoolers have as an advantage is families who
> make sure they learn whether or not they are reading, but there is
> also no doubt in my mind that someone who can read at a younger
> age, and enjoys it, can gain so much more information and knowledge
> and be far ahead of a counterpart who is not gaining that knowledge.
>
> I don�t know if reading is inevitable, I�ve seen families where
> everyone loves to read and learned to read easily and then one
> child desperately wants to read to but doesn�t seem to be able to
> do so. Then we do work with them, primarily in the area of phonemic
> awareness and literally rewire their brain and they take off. It�s
> amazing and if I had not been a part of it myself I would still
> think as you do.
>
> I�m not real sure why I�m writing except that I think it could be
> interesting to have a �conversation� about all of this. Do you have
> any research you can lead me to that would be helpful to me?
>
> Thanks for listening. J
>
> Debbie



[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Joyce Fetteroll

> In the back of my mind, I thought some of those kids I worked with
> might be fine and their only problem was that they were dealing
> with schools and their artificial guidelines about what needs to be
> taught when, etc. Yet, I also became aware of some very
> interesting research into the brain and learned through teaching
> that there are indeed some differences with reading and it may not
> always be so natural for some kids.


And yet all the research is done on schooled kids. Researchers can't
eliminate the effect of school on any aspect researchers examine in
kids (or adults for that matter!) Science can't know what is natural
for kids. They can only determine what is natural to schooled kids.

Unschooled kids with dyslexia do have a more difficult time decoding.
There are a few extra steps they need to go through in order to read,
but they do read.

Does that mean everyone can read? So far it's not knowable. What we
do know, though, is that there are unschooled kids who first make all
the connections to read at much later ages than they are allowed to
in school. And they are quickly reading at age level. *That* we do know.

> Those in reading research point out that speech and language have
> been hard wired into us for extremely long evolutionary time but
> reading and spelling are quite young skills and so it�s not so easy
> to compare them with each other. There are real man-made
> situations involved in decoding our language into symbols on a page
> and there do appear to be some people whose brains are not wired to
> make this an easy task.


I think it's a reasonable line of thought about reading being
relatively recent, but the written language wasn't dropped on
humanity by some outside entity. It was developed from the human mind
to be used by the human mind. It was shaped and molded by skills that
were already naturally present. What wasn't easy and natural for the
human mind to grasp would have been weeded out.

Is it possible not everyone has a full set of those skills? I can
only say that unschooled kids aren't leaving home without reading. Is
it possible the kids who don't have a full set of skills are given up
on and put in school or special programs to be taught to read? Of
course that's possible. But just because it's possible, does it
actually happen? That's the important question.

But theories based on speculated data aren't going very far until the
actual data shows up.

> For years, I have wished there could be some research done on
> unschoolers and their reading progress. I�d love to see if they
> start out with the same areas of the brain not quite wired up well
> and whether or not they connect naturally as they age.
>
> What I think most unschoolers have as an advantage is families who
> make sure they learn whether or not they are reading, but there is
> also no doubt in my mind that someone who can read at a younger
> age, and enjoys it, can gain so much more information and knowledge
> and be far ahead of a counterpart who is not gaining that knowledge.


If you look at the world through reading glasses, that's true ;-) We
as a society are very reading-centric. We're familiar with the
process of absorbing massive amounts of information through books. We
can easily imagine information that would be very difficult to absorb
any other way.

But if society tomorrow dropped reading and turned to hands on
learning or visual learning, we'd be much better at seeing the ways
reading is limited. That doesn't mean that books aren't best in some
situations. But we've put reading on such a pedestal that we elevate
the skills we can learn through reading and look down on the skills
we learn other ways.

I think the biggest limitation of information gathered through
reading is that the reader experiences the connections made by and
passed on by the writer. While we'll absorb some of those connections
and we'll make some connections the writer may have missed, it's not
how we're naturally hardwired to learn. We're hardwired to learn by
pulling our own order from chaos, refining our understanding, testing
it out, using it, refining it further. (How babies pull a mastery of
language out of the chaos of noise interacting with and swirling
around them.) We don't *naturally* learn by taking in chunks of other
people's information. While some people seem to be able to learn that
way, it isn't what's natural and it's very difficult for many people.

From the lowest organism that can learn from experience to the
highest order organisms, we all learn by pulling order from chaos.
It's how we evolved to learn. We can watch others and learn, but we
don't truly learn until we're doing something for our own personally
meaningful reasons.

Learning Spanish from a book and an instructor will fail miserably
for most people. And yet kids pick a language up effortlessly when
immersed in it. (As do adults who trust the process.) Hair dressing.
Swimming. Auto repair. Sewing. Skiing. Painting. Brain surgery.
Rocket science. Pool playing. Horse racing.

While reading could add to the knowledge, we're doing a disservice to
other more natural ways of learning when we barely notice their
contribution. Watching a video will also add knowledge. As does
talking to people. Each has their strengths and can all enhance the
learning. But where we build the foundation, though, is in hands on
doing and trying and thinking and talking and redoing and so on.

I think a big problem is that testing is easiest to do on knowledge
gained through reading. It's hard to test how effectively people are
building their own connections. But with reading, we can more easily
design tests to show how much someone has absorbed of the (basically)
predigested material.

Does that make learning from reading superior? No, it makes learning
from reading easily testable.

> I don�t know if reading is inevitable, I�ve seen families where
> everyone loves to read and learned to read easily and then one
> child desperately wants to read to but doesn�t seem to be able to
> do so. Then we do work with them, primarily in the area of phonemic
> awareness and literally rewire their brain and they take off. It�s
> amazing and if I had not been a part of it myself I would still
> think as you do.


At what age is it decided -- by the children or others -- that these
children you work with can't read? What pressures do the children
feel about reading? No matter how gentle the school program, once a
child is getting close to 4th grade they can't miss the messages that
they aren't doing what *seemingly* everyone else can.

(Yes, an occasional unschooled child can have a passion to read
before they're ready. It's not all school created. But some kids have
a passion to ride a bike before they're ready. As far as I know, the
kids whose mothers spoke up and asked about how to help their
children, have all had their kids read when the kids were ready. It
was frustratingly not when the kids wanted to be ready, but they did
read.)

My husband at 49 is learning to swim. While he had lessons as a
child, things that other kids were picking up from play and
instruction and trying things out and watching others, didn't make
the right kind of connections for him. He didn't learn how to stroke
and breath. He picked up a bad set of skills. Now he's rewiring his
brain. (I on the other hand, had no lessons and can stroke and breath
just fine from natural learning.)

So, are the kids you're working with naturally wired poorly for
reading, or was the unnatural process of learning to read in school
forcing their brains to make wrong connections in order to perform in
ways they couldn't yet do because their brains weren't ready?

> I�m not real sure why I�m writing except that I think it could be
> interesting to have a �conversation� about all of this. Do you have
> any research you can lead me to that would be helpful to me?


No, sorry, no research. It's theories and conclusions based on
results that unschoolers see in their kids. The data sampled is
obviously parent selected. If a parent doesn't trust a child can
read, they're not going to stick with unschooling if a child reaches
an age where the parent is certain the child won't read without
instruction. Does that mean the child can't read on their own? No. It
only means the parent decided the child couldn't. Does that mean the
child could read on their own? We can't know. But what we do know --
that later onset of reading is perfectly natural in humans --
*suggests* that reading is natural for everyone.

Joyce



[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

diana jenner

>
> No, sorry, no research. It's theories and conclusions based on
> results that unschoolers see in their kids. The data sampled is
> obviously parent selected. If a parent doesn't trust a child can
> read, they're not going to stick with unschooling if a child reaches
> an age where the parent is certain the child won't read without
> instruction. Does that mean the child can't read on their own? No. It
> only means the parent decided the child couldn't. Does that mean the
> child could read on their own? We can't know. But what we do know --
> that later onset of reading is perfectly natural in humans --
> *suggests* that reading is natural for everyone.
>

I just happened upon one of Hayden's notebooks (& I got permission to
photograph it for my blog -- I'll post the link when it's done)... he was 3
& 4 during these writings (he is now 10): lists of movies, names, book
titles, even a contract for me to sign and a list I wrote of his favorite
Star Wars words. He loved letters, the shape of them, the message of them,
the ART ;) He read his first book at 6.5; he quickly read his current
favorite games and his reading improvement has definitely followed the same
incline as his complexity of video game playing! See:
http://sandradodd.com/game/reading <http://sandradodd.com/game/reading>
He falls in and out of love with *people talking to him about reading,*
hence his above quoted "I hate reading" stage.
He likes me to read to him, because I read more quickly and I "recognize
more words" than he does. When I'm not there, he reads independently, just
fine.
He also types like crazy!! AND he keeps his fingers near the "home" keys,
without even knowing what that's called!
I think his spelling is amazing; first because of the years and years he
spent becoming familiar with words by copying them down in notebook after
notebook and second because I am always willing to spell for him whatever he
asks - he wants to communicate effectively and I'm a ready resource to
facilitate that process.
~diana :)
xoxoxoxo
hannahbearski.blogspot.com
hannahsashes.blogspot.com
dianas365.blogspot.com


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Sandra Dodd

On Feb 2, 2009, at 2:18 AM, Joyce Fetteroll wrote:

>> What I think most unschoolers have as an advantage is families who
>> make sure they learn whether or not they are reading, but there is
>> also no doubt in my mind that someone who can read at a younger
>> age, and enjoys it, can gain so much more information and knowledge
>> and be far ahead of a counterpart who is not gaining that knowledge.


Joyce might have made this point too. I kinda hope so! But i"ll
comment on this before reading Joyce's.


The second statement is well qualified with "no doubt in my mind and
"can gain," so I can't dispute it. The writer is sure one can gain
more by reading than by not reading.

I think in the 19th century that was true. I think much of our
educational system is based in the 19th century.

I've seen some families (not unschooling families) in which once a
child learned to read, no one read to him anymore. So a child who can
read picture books but not Harry Potter is condemned to read "easy
books" without many fun ideas, and some of them lose the desire to
read because it was shown as something the parents aren't willing to
do for fun, or because the easy books are more discouraging than
encouraging sometimes.

As to hardwiring, it's one of the things Howard Gardner has proposed
with his theory of multiple intelligences
http://sandradodd.com/intelligences

If a person is not high on the verbal intelligence scale (if that's
where reading lies), years of phonics lessons might make him LESS
likely to pick up a book when he's old enough to have figured it out
in his own way. Years of being branded "not a reader" (whether in
those words or just by living in remedial groups and having to take
home "bad report cards") has turned millions of happy, hopeful young
children into book-hating adults.

Sandra

Sandra Dodd

When I went to put some of Joyce's response on my bookworship page, I
found something that might help in this discussion:


"When someone thinks books are the one crucial step to any further
learning, then books and school have crippled that person's ability to
think expansively, and to see what's unfolding in front of them in the
real world."

That was me, in another discussion some years back.

And that reminds me of something I pulled to use in a talk I'm giving
in Tempe, Arizona in March (plug for the HENA conference, a one-day
conference on March7):

****************************
Some people see experienced unschoolers ("experienced" meaning in this
context people who have done it well and effortlessly for years, who
aren't afraid anymore, who have seen inspiring results) mention
classes, and they think "Ah, well if the experienced unschoolers' kids
take classes, then classes are good/necessary/no problem."
But if beginners don't go through a phase in which they REALLY focus
on seeing learning outside of academic formalities, they will not be
able to see around academics. If you turn away from the academics and
truly, really, calmly and fully believe that there is a world that
doesn't revolve around or even require or even benefit from academic
traditions, *then* after a while you can see academics (research into
education, or classes, or college) from another perspective.

Once there was heavy fog at our house. Kirby was four or five. He had
never seen it at all, and this was as thick as I have ever seen fog.
He wanted to go and touch it. I yelled "Let's go!" and we ran up the
road, and ran, and ran. About seven houses up we got tired, and I said
"Look" and pointed back toward our house, which was gone in the fog.

I did NOT say "See? You can't touch it, really, it's touching us, it's
all around us."
I didn't say "Let's don't bother, it's just the same wherever in there
you are."

I let him experience the fog. He learned by running in fog and
smelling it, and losing his house in it.

For someone who has been out of and away from school for six months to
take a class will not be the same experience as someone (child or
parent) who has been out and away for eight or ten years. It will be
different in very, very profound ways. And "profound" doesn't show
from the house. You have to run until you can't see the house, and
then profundity kicks in.

****************************

Same with books.

I love books. That doesn't keep me from telling unschoolers that they
need to learn to see learning outside of books.



Sandra

Jenny C

> > What I think most unschoolers have as an advantage is families who
> > make sure they learn whether or not they are reading, but there is
> > also no doubt in my mind that someone who can read at a younger
> > age, and enjoys it, can gain so much more information and knowledge
> > and be far ahead of a counterpart who is not gaining that knowledge.

I've actually found that to be very untrue! My very late reader gained
a lot more valuable and relative information and knowledge than most of
her schooled peers reading and doing school stuff. Being able to read
does not garauntee more information and knowledge gained! I've met
plenty of people that can read, but really don't think, have no desire
to gain knowledge , or gather information, kids and adults.

The idea of being ahead and behind is another thing that should be
discarded. Outside of the measurements of the school system, how can
anyone be ahead or behind? How can someone be behind in their own
knowledge and exploration of the world? It doesn't even make sense! Am
I behind in my knowledge of cooking because I'm not a chef? Am I ahead
of that same chef because I can draw and the chef can't?


> > I don't know if reading is inevitable, I've seen families
where
> > everyone loves to read and learned to read easily and then one
> > child desperately wants to read to but doesn't seem to be able
to
> > do so. Then we do work with them, primarily in the area of phonemic
> > awareness and literally rewire their brain and they take off.
It's
> > amazing and if I had not been a part of it myself I would still
> > think as you do.

Can anyone really rewire anyone else's brain? I wonder if that is even
possible! I can understand, in the given scenario, how a child in that
circumstance, not being able to read and people continuing to throw
things at the child, until something finally "clicks". Who's to say
that the child in question wouldn't eventually come to the same
connections if left in peace to discover it on their own, through their
own natural exploration?

Perhaps that child could've watched the Electric Company more, or
whatever other shows on PBS that do that phonemic stuff. Perhaps that
particular child, if left to discover reading in their own way, might
have naturally gravited towards this understanding of the written word.
I see my younger daughter doing this very thing, on her own accord.
It's not at all how my other daughter figured out how to read, and if
I'd tried to do the phonemic awareness thing with her, she would've been
extremely frustrated with it simply because it would not have made sense
to her in any way whatsoever!

Sandra Dodd

On Feb 2, 2009, at 11:50 AM, Jenny C wrote:

>
> I've actually found that to be very untrue! My very late reader gained
> a lot more valuable and relative information and knowledge than most
> of
> her schooled peers reading and doing school stuff. Being able to read
> does not garauntee more information and knowledge gained! I've met
> plenty of people that can read, but really don't think, have no desire
> to gain knowledge , or gather information, kids and adults.

By the time Holly was a fluent reader, her vocabulary was huge, so her
second book was a Stephen King novella (The Body). Her first book was
a Judy Blume book.

For some kids in school, the Judy Blume would have been the 100th book
MAYBE, if they weren't sick of books by that point.

Kids in school learn to fake and dodge and lie about whether they've
read something, too. I taught Jr. High English for six years, so even
if I didn't already know if from my own years in school, I saw it
hundreds of times.

People fake and dodge and lie about what they've read about
unschooling too. It's interesting. After someone claimed (on this
list or another one) to have read my entire website, then in a chat
someone assured me she had read the all the examples of typical
unschooling days. I asked her if she had read them all (she'd just
told me she had) and she said no, some. I'm going to save that quote
and every quote from now on when someone claims to have read
everything. It's a way to shush the questions and suggestions. "I
READ IT. sheesh"

What "read" often means in school is "move your eyes back and forth
until the bell rings." If that weren't true, then how could reading
be considered a separate thing (in school and on tests) from "reading
comprehension"?

Holly never read without comprehension. <g>

Sandra

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Jenny C

> People fake and dodge and lie about what they've read about
> unschooling too. It's interesting. After someone claimed (on this
> list or another one) to have read my entire website, then in a chat
> someone assured me she had read the all the examples of typical
> unschooling days. I asked her if she had read them all (she'd just
> told me she had) and she said no, some. I'm going to save that quote
> and every quote from now on when someone claims to have read
> everything. It's a way to shush the questions and suggestions. "I
> READ IT. sheesh"
>


The thing about your website is that you are always updating and adding
to it, so that at any given time, one could never have read it all!
I've been checking it and reading articles since you made it, and
honestly, I doubt I have even come close to reading it all! Lots for
sure, but all? Probably not! And does it count if you haven't clicked
on all the links and read every thing there as well? Goodness, that
could boggle the mind!

Sandra Dodd

On Feb 2, 2009, at 12:18 PM, Jenny C wrote:

> The thing about your website is that you are always updating and
> adding
> to it, so that at any given time, one could never have read it all!


And it's not made or meant to be "read all" anyway--it's more like a
library of good stuff, and resources for particular questions and
kinda-therapeutic pages and humor and seriousness.

Sandra

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Margaret

This brought to mind a story that my mom told me. She was having a
conversation with a french woman about something related to nutrition.
Her being French is only relevant b/c it explains the simple
vocabulary and also we always retell the story with a cute French
accent. My mom was expressing a polite level of skepticism about what
the woman had said and the other woman's very earnest reply was, "But
Mariana, it must be true. I read it in a book."

Book worship.



On Mon, Feb 2, 2009 at 11:01 AM, Sandra Dodd <Sandra@...> wrote:

> People fake and dodge and lie about what they've read about
> unschooling too. It's interesting. After someone claimed (on this
> list or another one) to have read my entire website, then in a chat
> someone assured me she had read the all the examples of typical
> unschooling days. I asked her if she had read them all (she'd just
> told me she had) and she said no, some. I'm going to save that quote
> and every quote from now on when someone claims to have read
> everything. It's a way to shush the questions and suggestions. "I
> READ IT. sheesh"

eaglefalconlark

Sandra wrote: "Years of being branded "not a reader" (whether in those
words or just by living in remedial groups and having to take home
"bad report cards") has turned millions of happy, hopeful young
children into book-hating adults."

Or adults who think there's something wrong with them when there's
not. My niece is an avid and skilled reader. For her the damage of
others' concern that she wasn't reading at grade level in school was
not to her love her books but to her self-regard. She and her family
still have a perception of her as being "learning disabled" and "not a
good student" (i.e. not intellectually gifted.)

Debbie wrote: "I don't know if reading is inevitable, I've seen
families where everyone loves to read and learned to read easily and
then one child desperately wants to read to but doesn't seem to be
able to do so. Then we do work with them, primarily in the area of
phonemic awareness and literally rewire their brain and they take off.
It's amazing and if I had not been a part of it myself I would still
think as you do."

I don't think reading is inevitable in the sense that all people will
necessarily pick it up without help or feedback (although I think most
would acquire it in an organic way if they were allowed to,) but why
does it matter? Are you saying that you think that this possibility is
in conflict with unschooling? Or--?

Debbie wrote: "there is also no doubt in my mind that someone who can
read at a younger age, and enjoys it, can gain so much more
information and knowledge and be far ahead of a counterpart who is not
gaining that knowledge."

I'm not concerned that my children be "ahead". I don't see any benefit
to it unless they're going to go to school, in which case I suppose it
would be good for their self-esteem to not be considered dumb by
comparison to others. I'm trying to think, too, of the sort of
information and knowledge that a young child would be able to process
that would be so beneficial for him/her to know now instead of later.
Does it really matter whether my child learn about dinosaurs at age
four, or age eleven, or age 26 for that matter? And is it necessary
for him/her to learn that from books, or are there other ways to get
information? An exception might be some of the really academic stuff,
but I'd think that a child who is ready for that level of
intellectualization of the world is also probably ready to understand
how symbols relate to words.

It does seem to me that my kids' learning to read did coincide with
their brains being ready to start researching the outside world and
entering others' created worlds. Which was around age 9-10. Before
that, I suspect, being able to read would have been little more than a
party trick, in terms of its value to them.

Linda

Sandra Dodd

-=-My mom was expressing a polite level of skepticism about what
the woman had said and the other woman's very earnest reply was, "But
Mariana, it must be true. I read it in a book."

-=-Book worship.-=-

This week I bought myself a widescreen DVD version of the movie Dead
Poets Society and started out watching it. Didn't finish. But I was
noticing how many of the actors who were relatively unknown then are
now much more famous, and kids who weren't of movie-watching age when
it came out are turning teens now and might appreciate seeing Robert
Sean Leonard (who is Dr. Wilson on the TV show "House" now) and
Kurtwood Smith (who plays Eric's dad on "That 70s Show"). Ethan
Hawke's there. Both he and Robert Sean Leonard went on to play in
Shakespeare movies (Hamlet and Much Ado About Nothing, respectively,
and Robin Williams has a small role in the Kenneth Branagh Hamlet).

Be warned, those who haven't seen Dead Poets Society, or haven't seen
it since you had kids and were unschooling. It's rough. Maybe
preview it before you show kids. And Robin Williams is playing a
serious role.



ANYWAY.... the book worship part.

In a poetry class the Robin Williams character is teaching, he wants
them to tear the introductory section out of their heavy, fat poetry
textbooks, and these high school boys in a private boarding school
are afraid to tear a book and he says something like "go ahead--it's
not the Bible; you won't go to hell." It's a moment, the looks the
boys are giving each other.

Sandra

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Verna

Reading is something I have been thinking alot about lately. Of my 4
kids, one is reading. He is 6 and last year just started to read.
Some days he reads everything he sees, from serial boxes, to direction
on an expirement kits. Other days he reads nothing. (or atleast not
outloud). He wasnt taught to read, I can claim no credit, he just
asked a few questions like, "ing" says ing right. Or is that a b or a
d, it says "b", right? Or can you read this sentence then I will read
that one.
My 7 year old has made a few comments about his brothers reading. He
believes he should have learned to read before him since he is older.
I explain that isnt how it works. And he will learn when he is ready.
He doesnt have the same interest in words. Everyonce in a while he
will see something and read it. But I in absolutely no way feel he
learns less because he doesnt read yet. Matter of fact, during that
time schooled kids are being force fed phonics, my son is discovering
things, playing, looking at pictures, listening to books on tape,
expirementing, creating. He just has better things to do right now.
Its like putting a kid to bed before they are tired enough to go to
sleep... just a waste of time and a power struggle.

Debbie Harbeson

Hello, my name is Debbie and I’m the person who wrote the message to Joyce that was forwarded here. I would like to thank everyone who has taken the time so far to respond to the thread. As I read them all, I tried to jot down some further thoughts and comments and answers to questions posed and I’m sharing them all here in one post. Hope it makes sense. ☺

1. Several people picked up on my comment about there being ‘no doubt in my mind that someone who can read at a younger age, and enjoys it, can gain so much more information and knowledge and be far ahead of a counterpart who is not gaining that knowledge.' I appreciate the pointing out of what was really a pretty judgmental point on my part. I was speaking from the experience of that job mostly, yet from my plain old life experience too, because I do think that reading is a great way to gain information in an easy and fast manner. I guess I think of it as an extremely valuable tool for going through life.

2. Sandra said maybe the importance of books was more true for the 19th century and I think that is a good point. Now we have lots of ways to get the exact same info that is in books through various audio and video means. Yet somehow books still seem to trump that for me because for one thing, you don't need any electricity.

3. I agree with whoever made the point about continuing to read aloud even after a child can read. For years I've been pointing this out, that in our family, even after the kids could read, we read aloud and I could read books above their reading level and they gained a lot of fun and information that way along with their own reading.

4. I've never thought of books as closing one to the real world. I always thought of them as opening many, many new worlds very easily. Of course I understand that there is a lot of learning that happens outside of books (remember I basically unschooled my own two kids) but I still think reading is such an important and valuable tool.

5. Someone asked why this is even important to me. Well of course it was important to me when I had the job and wondered about it all and I knew part of the problem was that the kids were stuck in school. But as to reading in general, I just think it just makes life easier. I mean back to the 19th century comment, while that makes some sense, I can't help but point out that here we all are, discussing this by reading each other's points.

6. On being ahead and behind. Another good catch to point out that my comments were being affected by the situation I was in and yet, I guess I do consider reading and books just, well, an efficient way to gain information. And that's important for me because I use the information to stop and think. I've realized over the year though that a lot of people don't stop and think and ponder and consider, so the point made about how a lot of people who can read don't necessarily think is very true. So perhaps the most important piece here is not reading per se, but the ability and desire to really think things through in depth.

7. On the rewiring of the brain. This is the one thing that probably kept me going in the job for so long. I am fascinated by scientific research on the brain and since the introduction of fMRI (functional magnetic resonance imaging), we are gaining more and more knowledge about how the brain works every day. Blood flows to the parts of the brain that are working when someone performs a task and fMRI is a way to see and measure the blood flow to various parts of the brain. This fMRI has been used in reading research and it's fascinating. They used fMRI and measured the parts of the brain that were working on good readers and then on those who were struggling and saw clearly that one part of the brain was not working on the ones who struggled. Then the group, the ones who were struggling were given lessons specifically geared to improve phonemic awareness (this is not the same as phonics by the way), and when they measured them again, that part of the brain that 'lit up' with the good readers also 'lit up' with these people. This was big news in the reading research field because it clearly showed that there is a brain-based way of helping people who struggle with reading. It's not that they couldn't use that part of the brain, but that for some reason it wasn't wired and making the connections it was with the people who learn to read easily.

Now some of you may be thinking, well who knows if they would not have picked this up naturally. I can tell you this, that they have done research on some who were young and struggled but had no help and when tested as adults they had the same part of the brain not making the connections. And again with those adults, once they were helped with phonemic awareness, their brains behaved the same way and made new connections. This is probably where my statements about 'ahead' and 'behind' came into play because when those adults were finally taught to read, it didn't necessarily help them because they had missed so many years of 'practicing' reading that it is very difficult to get them to read fluently.

8. On the story someone told about 'it must be true because I read it in a book' I tell everyone that the most important lesson my father ever taught me (he was also a very avid reader by the way but only went to school through 6th grade). Anyway the lesson he taught me was to not believe everything you read, it's basically only someone's opinion. That little piece of advice has helped me tremendously. :)

I hope I was able to share my thoughts clearly and welcome any further feedback from those interested in the discussion.

Debbie
www.homeschoolingisfreedom.blogspot.com
www.debbieharbeson.com

Robyn L. Coburn

<<<they have done research on some >>>

Schooled. Some who were in school or had been in school.

<<<young>>>

But younger than some who were already reading, is still only defined as a
problem by school, not unschoolers.

<<<struggling

snip...

had no help >>>

So not unschoolers then. Sounds like people who had been metaphorically
abandoned by reading teachers, and then had taken on the idea in their own
minds that they were broken and needed to be repaired by some brain and
reading doctor.

<<<< It's not that they couldn't use that part of the brain, but that for
some reason it wasn't wired and making the connections it was with the
people who learn to read easily. >>>

Yet. The "some reason" is tied up to "not yet". The "some reason" is because
someone had an external timetable and the kids' time was up. No mystery
about it.

But in an unschooling environment, help is *defined by the learner* as such.
The internal connections will be made at the right time, without being
pushed into place by some program or other.

I just don't like the implication that the best help comes from Experts who
have a program. Yes it is interesting science. But just because it works
does not make it the only thing that works, or that it is essential or
better than allowing reading to unfold and blossom in an unschooling
household.

No one is testing the brain electricity of unschoolers as a control group,
so I guess we just have our own experiences and observations to guide us.
And the principle of Celebration - that our children are whole and unbroken
and exactly where they are supposed to be, reading or not (yet).

Two days ago Jayn read aloud instructions from the Alice tutorial for about
half an hour. It still requires concentration for her to read, not yet
automatic decoding, but that is so clearly coming. Alice is a college level
animation program. More real vocabulary in context.

Robyn L. Coburn
www.Iggyjingles.etsy.com
www.iggyjingles.blogspot.com
www.allthingsdoll.blogspot.com

k

>>>> I can tell you this, that they have done research on some who were young and struggled but had no help and when tested as adults they had the same part of the brain not making the connections. And again with those adults, once they were helped with phonemic awareness, their brains behaved the same way and made new connections. This is probably where my statements about 'ahead' and 'behind' came into play because when those adults were finally taught to read, it didn't necessarily help them because they had missed so many years of 'practicing' reading that it is very difficult to get them to read fluently. <<<<

An advantage of unschooling that I've heard about repeatedly is that
vocabulary does not lag due to reading at later ages. I can attest to
vocabulary gain with Karl who uses very unelementary words in everyday
conversation without even batting an eye. Young nonreaders don't need
to read to get more vocabulary even though, for sure, being read with
or talked with is indispensible. I don't talk "Dick & Jane"-like to
encourage Karl to practice speaking vocabulary and there's no need to
read in practice mode to encourage the accumulation of reading
knowledge. Karl gains reading knowledge by asking questions and
making comments about what he sees in the written words around him.
The other day while parked at a gas station, he asked me to read
"phone" on the phone booth in front of us. He had tried it
phonetically and the "h" made no sense. He was annoyed at the illogic
and I remarked that English has a lot of that but Spanish not so much
of it.

There are all kinds of ways to gain key reading knowledge without
being sat down at books and mastering it a word at a time.

>>>> 8. On the story someone told about 'it must be true because I read it in a book' I tell everyone that the most important lesson my father ever taught me (he was also a very avid reader by the way but only went to school through 6th grade). Anyway the lesson he taught me was to not believe everything you read, it's basically only someone's opinion. That little piece of advice has helped me tremendously. :) <<<<

And one of the things to watch out about research is that some studies
are well designed and others aren't. Both kinds of studies may
publish findings that seem equally sound, yet some kinds of studies
are not very sound.

~Katherine

Joyce Fetteroll

On Feb 4, 2009, at 12:47 PM, Debbie Harbeson wrote:

> I do think that reading is a great way to gain information in an
> easy and fast manner. I guess I think of it as an extremely
> valuable tool for going through life.

This is generally the sticking point people have when the subject of
book worship comes up. *No one* has claimed that reading isn't
useful. No one could come to my house and even think that ;-)

The problem is that because of the emphasis in the society on
reading, we get blinded to the benefits of *other* ways of learning.

In this society, reading is treated like a 50' tree in a field with a
bunch of stubby trees. Seen from a distance it's all by itself and
it's enormous. What we're discussing isn't knocking that tree down.
We're saying the other trees -- the other ways of learning -- have
been trimmed down so far they're not even noticed. If the others are
nurtured and seen for their own value, the 50' reading tree is still
there, but it's just not all by itself anymore. It's surrounded by
other valuable ways of learning.

> Yet somehow books still seem to trump that for me because for one
> thing, you don't need any electricity.
>
But you're still thinking in terms of book style information.

When you see and value what *can't* be learned through reading, then
you'll get what we're saying. It's not that others are more important
than reading, it's that others have their own value. Reading is good
for some things, but not good for other things. Hands on is good for
learning some things, not as good for other things. Same for all ways
of learning.

> even after the kids could read, we read aloud and I could read
> books above their reading level and they gained a lot of fun and
> information that way along with their own reading.
>

They could listen to books on CD if hearing books read was just to
take in books above their reading level.

Even more valuable is shared experience. Kat (17) and I still read
manga together just for the shared experience. Like watching a show
together.

> but I still think reading is such an important and valuable tool.
>

But, see, who said reading wasn't valuable? Do paste the quote if you
can.

The situation with book worship is like those black and white photos
where one thing is in color to emphasize it. Reading for this society
is in color, all other ways of learning are in black and white. We're
trying to help people see that's just a trick of the photo created by
society. All learning is in color. We're not taking away the color
from reading. It's still just as colorful. But doing, talking,
watching people and videos, listening and so on are all just as
colorful if people could finally see how valuable those contributions
are in their lives.

And individuals will find some ways more colorful than others. Some
will find reading the most colorful. Some will find videos the most
colorful. Some will find working with their hands the most colorful.
And so on.

> But as to reading in general, I just think it just makes life easier.
>

Has anyone said reading doesn't make life easier? Again, if you could
quote that it would be helpful. (Because maybe the words are coming
across in ways people don't intend! Maybe it was mine and I need to
know! ;-)

I would say, yes, in general adults who can't read will have a
tougher time in life. There's a lot of information (like filling out
forms, extracting information from schedules) that reading makes lots
easier. There may be things they want to know that aren't as easily
found other ways.

But how many adult illiterates are there who didn't spend years in
school with forced reading instruction? Or who grew up in
impoverished areas where reading wasn't available. Unfortunately we
can't really separate an adult who can't read from the damage of
being demoralized and embarrassed in school because they never
learned and had to hide it.

But the subject isn't adult illiteracy. It's about teaching children
to read. So, the question relevant to unschooling is does being able
to read at 6 or 8 make life easier for every child?

That's another one of those brain traps. School people are used to
thinking in terms of generalizations: what's good for all 8 yos and
10 yos. They have to treat them as a single unit because schools are
set up to treat them that way.

But unschoolers don't. We talk about what does a particular child
need. A 6 yo who has pleasant experiences with reading but can't yet
read herself is absorbing from life in other ways.

So when we say all 6, 8 and 10 yos don't need to read, we *don't*
mean unschoolers in any way discourage kids from reading! If a child
is ready to read at 6, an unschooled child will be reading then. If
the child won't be ready until 12, they're supported in who they are
while they're learning other ways, and then they read at 12. The
child hasn't missed anything. They've been doing *other* things that
they found just as valuable with the time they would have spent reading.

> Now some of you may be thinking, well who knows if they would not
> have picked this up naturally. I can tell you this, that they have
> done research on some who were young and struggled but had no help
> and when tested as adults they had the same part of the brain not
> making the connections.
>

But in between they were subjected to school methods of learning to
read. It's not unheard of for unschoolers to begin reading at 12.
They begin reading and are quickly reading at age level. But what
would they be like if they'd been subjected to 6 years of reading
instruction that wasn't making sense to them because their brains
weren't ready for it?

Until that school factor can be eliminated, it's impossible to tell
if it's school instruction behind that phenomenon or something else.

Joyce



[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Joyce Fetteroll

On Feb 4, 2009, at 12:47 PM, Debbie Harbeson wrote:

> Then the group, the ones who were struggling were given lessons
> specifically geared to improve phonemic awareness (this is not the
> same as phonics by the way), and when they measured them again,
> that part of the brain that 'lit up' with the good readers also
> 'lit up' with these people.


Here's an article on Phonemic awareness:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phonemic_awareness

I suspect a big factor in kids not developing phonemic awareness
before schools give up on them is they're separated from someone
(Mom) who has the leisure to read to them when they want, what they
want.

From what I've heard, some unschooled kids figure out reading by
chunks and not individual phonemes. (I'm guessing the phonemes come
later for them, once they've gathered enough data in ways that make
sense to them. It would be interesting if an unschooler had a teen
who first read by word shapes and ask if they can break words down
into phonemes.)

Joyce

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Jenny C

>>>I was speaking from the experience of that job mostly, yet from my
plain old life experience too, because I do think that reading is a
great way to gain information in an easy and fast manner. I guess I
think of it as an extremely valuable tool for going through life.>>>

Reading is only a great way to gain information in an easy and fast
manner, if you know how to read. For a kid who doesn't, it would be a
dreadful experience.

I don't think anyone is arguing that reading isn't a valuable tool, just
that it isn't necessary onto force a child who isn't ready.

>>>Yet somehow books still seem to trump that for me because for one
thing, you don't need any electricity.>>>

I don't need electricity to wash my clothes either, I could go to the
river dredge up water, haul it to my house, make some soap and use my
knuckles to rub out stains and dirt.

>>> For years I've been pointing this out, that in our family, even
after the kids could read, we read aloud and I could read books above
their reading level and they gained a lot of fun and information that
way along with their own reading.>>>

Sometimes it's just nice to share information wether or not the child
you are sharing it with could read it themselves or not.


>>>I've never thought of books as closing one to the real world. I
always thought of them as opening many, many new worlds very easily. Of
course I understand that there is a lot of learning that happens outside
of books (remember I basically unschooled my own two kids) but I still
think reading is such an important and valuable tool.>>>

All learning happens outside of books! You can garner information from
books, but the learning is happening inside the individual with real
world connections. I have no doubt that reading can show us things we
have never thought about before, but the same is true for hands on
activities.


>>> I mean back to the 19th century comment, while that makes some
sense, I can't help but point out that here we all are, discussing this
by reading each other's points.>>>

Yes, but I think the point is about wether or not kids should be forced
to learn how to read, or wether or not that is even possible, and that
if a child isn't ready, it can cause a lot of damage.


>>>I've realized over the year though that a lot of people don't stop
and think and ponder and consider, so the point made about how a lot of
people who can read don't necessarily think is very true. So perhaps the
most important piece here is not reading per se, but the ability and
desire to really think things through in depth.>>>

I think, it's more about allowing kids the freedom to come to the world
on their own terms, absorb information as they are ready, and really
understand things because there isn't any pressure to perform to someone
else's standards.


>>>They used fMRI and measured the parts of the brain that were working
on good readers and then on those who were struggling and saw clearly
that one part of the brain was not working on the ones who struggled.>>>

I really believe that kids shut down when forced into situations they
aren't ready for.

All the study really showed is that once someone became aware a certain
aspect of reading, their brain showed it. It doesn't mean anything good
or bad. The way I see it, is that when kids are living in a hotbed of
learning without force or coersion, they make all kinds of connections.
Surely a lot of those connections aren't made with kids in school, since
they are only interested in certain types of learning connections. All
the rest of the child is irrelevant.

What unschooling does, is makes it all relevant! Not just wether or not
someone is able to read or how or when. Unschooled kids do learn how to
read and before they do, they are making other, more relevant to the
individual, connections. One could argue that it is way more important
to make valuable connections than specific connections, and who better
to decide what is valuable than the individual?

Schuyler

>7. On the rewiring of the brain. This is the one thing that probably
kept me going in the job for so long. I am fascinated by scientific
research on the brain and since the introduction >of fMRI (functional
magnetic resonance imaging), we are gaining more and more knowledge
about how the brain works every day. Blood flows to the parts of the
brain that are >working when someone performs a task and fMRI is a way
to see and measure the blood flow to various parts of the brain. This
fMRI has been used in reading research and it's >fascinating. They used
fMRI and measured the parts of the brain that were working on good
readers and then on those who were struggling and saw clearly that one
part of the >brain was not working on the ones who struggled. Then the
group, the ones who were struggling were given lessons specifically
geared to improve phonemic awareness (this is not >the same as phonics
by the way), and when they measured them again, that part of the brain
that 'lit up' with the good readers also 'lit up' with these people.
This was big news in >the reading research field because it clearly
showed that there is a brain-based way of helping people who struggle
with reading. It's not that they couldn't use that part of the brain,
>but that for some reason it wasn't wired and making the connections it
was with the people who learn to read easily.

>Now
some of you may be thinking, well who knows if they would not have
picked this up naturally. I can tell you this, that they have done
research on some who were young and >struggled but had no help and when
tested as adults they had the same part of the brain not making the
connections. And again with those adults, once they were helped with
>phonemic awareness, their brains behaved the same way and made new
connections. This is probably where my statements about 'ahead' and
'behind' came into play because >when those adults were finally taught
to read, it didn't necessarily help them because they had missed so
many years of 'practicing' reading that it is very difficult to get
them to read >fluently.

I found a the study that uses fMRI and reading. This paper was done in 2003 and only with children 8-12 and not with adults. It's a study of children with dyslexia, it's a study of children in school. If anyone wants to read the study its at: http://www.pnas.org/content/100/5/2860.full.pdf. The study I found makes no mention of adult students. It does however state that the remedial program that they used (remedial comes with such baggage, doesn't it?) is in common use which would suggest that any adult who was tested had gone through the programs that should have changed their neural wiring.

There have been recent papers out about the plasticity of the adult human mind. These adults who you argue are demonstrating a rigid mind, an inability to read as well as a younger reader who has practiced more, are getting the rigidness from somewhere outside of their minds ability to adapt to change. I would imagine that the rigidity comes from years of feeling like they were stupid by being told that reading was the only way to knowledge. Reading is probably not something that gives them a warm feeling inside.

Schuyler

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Sandra Dodd

-=>>> I mean back to the 19th century comment, while that makes some
sense, I can't help but point out that here we all are, discussing this
by reading each other's points.>>>-=-

This morning Holly and I were both in my *new* chatroom, during a test
session. I was busily checking the nooks and crannies and sometimes
I'd miss people's questions, but I'd look up and Holly had given them
a clear and quick answer. She was typing as fast as I was, and with
fewer typos, but she learned to read and write and spell in ways
unlike school's. I took typing classes, but that's not what gave me
speed. Only practice did that. And Holly pretty much types with her
two middle fingers, but she's zippy.

Holly's points were as easy to read as anyone's, and easier than some,
and she learned without instruction, while she had full reign to play
all the video games or My Little Ponies or Barbies or whatever she
wanted to play. When she wanted me to read to her, I did--whether it
was dialog in Harvest Moon or Robert Louis Stevenson poems (she loved
those for a month or so) or magazine articles about rock bands she
liked.

We're here discussing things, but there are also people who prefer
blogs, because they want to see the photos, and some who prefer in-
person picnics and campouts and conferences, because they can watch
people interact, and touch them.

Sandra

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

k

>>>> When you see and value what *can't* be learned through reading, then
you'll get what we're saying. It's not that others are more important
than reading, it's that others have their own value. Reading is good
for some things, but not good for other things. Hands on is good for
learning some things, not as good for other things. Same for all ways
of learning. <<<<

I'm sure some of us can come up with more examples but just for instance:

In the last couple of days, Karl has been playing with a game CD
called "Crazy Machines, the Wacky Contraption Game." At first we were
plunking around on the beginning challenges to put the prefabbed
contraptions together to make them work, and quickly ran aground. We
did the same thing a few weeks ago and put the game aside. I got
burnt out on it and Karl plugged onward without me for a few minutes,
and the next thing I know he has discovered the freestyle area of the
game where all the components are at your fingertips and you can
fabricate any contraption and push the start button to see what
happens. He spent hours on it.

Yes it can be written and read about, and has! If I didn't have the
game or acces to the physical object, I could still read about it.
And I would still think an onscreen game is better than reading to
play with and figure out the cause and effect. It's probably a lot
safer than playing around with bombs, electricity, and heavy objects
in physical form too.

~Katherine

Debbie Harbeson

More interesting responses which produced more thoughts from me :)....

1. I'm not sure why I started sounding like someone specifically said
reading wasn't valuable. Somehow as I was writing my response my
thoughts started drifting to defending reading. Maybe that came out
because I'm a weekly political columnist for a daily newspaper and find
myself defending things like freedom and letting people live their lives
as they see fit a lot. As you all certainly know there are a lot of
people who have trouble with the idea of freedom. So just dump whatever
I said along those lines.

2. I think everyone was right to point out that the research was done on
people who were all 'schooled.' And that's partly what has kept me
wondering all these years, the thought that if we could only do some
research on unschooled people if the results would be different and
everyone could learn how to help people learn, which may be just leaving
them alone of course. :) Plus just my basic curiosity I guess.

3. If a well-defined scientific study could be done and I'm not even
sure it can, that just would be cool. We've certainly changed our
assumptions about many other things over the centuries as we learn more
through scientific study. The problem I see in our day and age is that a
lot of science is out to defend assumptions rather than coming from the
basic idea of proving what's true. Whole industries come out of
assumptions, and the remedial reading industry is probably one of them,
so you have to be so skeptical and vigilant of any research. And that's
difficult and time-consuming. But I still hold that eventually true
science wins, even if it takes centuries.

4. One of the things that has come out of this research is there is
supposedly a way to screen young kids to see if they may have trouble
reading. I've watched this play out at the center I worked at and do
not draw any positive conclusions that it's as predictable as anyone
would like. When I contacted some of these families a few years later,
some kids were doing fine and others were having trouble, so I saw no
evidence that a screening actually did anything. Except to worry parents
of course, which may be the inherent idea even if the people think they
are well-intentioned and helping the families. Also, if it does prove
to be predictive, it would really only show us it is predictive with
'schooled' kids because we are trying so hard to fit everyone in that
box and they must do certain things at certain ages.

5. I don't think I ever said this here yet, but I guess one reason I've
thought about this so much was due to my personal experience unschooling
my two kids. My daughter learned to read easily and is as voracious a
reader and my father and I. My son wasn't so interested but I just left
him alone because I believed in my heart that it was natural and he
would learn to read and enjoy it if he could go at his own pace and
interest. And he did because by the time he was in his mid-teens he
started reading lots more and he never had any trouble with the reading
he had to do in college. He's a great speller too and we did that
naturally as well, interestingly enough he spells better than my
daughter. Of course we had no trouble finding ways for him to learn
without reading while he was growing up. So when I started to learn
more through this job and learn about the research and all, I wondered
if we may have just been 'lucky' in that they did not have some of these
issues. But right now, I'm thinking it's probably true that it's more
about the schooled vs the unschooled rather than any specific brain
science. I still think we may discover interesting things eventually
through brain science, it's certainly an untapped field, a whole new
frontier, a, a,... okay getting a bit weird now, huh? :)

Debbie
www.homeschoolingisfreedom.blogspot.com
www.debbieharbeson.com

Sandra Dodd

-=-I'm not sure why I started sounding like someone specifically said
reading wasn't valuable. Somehow as I was writing my response my
thoughts started drifting to defending reading. Maybe that came out
because I'm a weekly political columnist for a daily newspaper and find
myself defending things like freedom and letting people live their lives
as they see fit a lot.-=-

Usually when someone sounds like something, it's because they're
thinking it. Typos are an exception. <g>

-=- As you all certainly know there are a lot of
people who have trouble with the idea of freedom. So just dump whatever
I said along those lines.-=-

I don't understand this.
I understand the words, but I don't understand the intent.

-=-When I contacted some of these families a few years later,
some kids were doing fine and others were having trouble, so I saw no
evidence that a screening actually did anything. Except to worry parents
of course, which may be the inherent idea even if the people think they
are well-intentioned and helping the families. -=-

It harmed the kids, and it harmed the relationship between the parents
an the children. It harmed their freedoms and the way they perceived
themselves and others.

-=- there is
supposedly a way to screen young kids to see if they may have trouble
reading. I've watched this play out at the center I worked at and do
not draw any positive conclusions that it's as predictable as anyone
would like.-=-

By "screen" you're talking about some kind of test or evaluation. If
you think those are benign, I question whether your understanding of
unschooling approaches what people on this list have come to accept as
given.

From my perspective:

***Of all the things I believe strongly, one which has changed my life
as profoundly as any one other belief is my personal knowledge that
test scores can and do (can't fail to) affect the treatment a child
receives at his parents' hands. High scores, low scores, average
scores--no matter. Parents cease to treat the child as his original,
known self and color him soul deep with that number.

***My life would have been different. My husband's life would have
been different, without those 5th and 8th grade ITBS scores. I venture
to say without even knowing who is reading this that your life would
have been different, and specifically I believe your life would have
been better, had not you been branded with a number on your "permanent
record" (there's a big mean scary joke, the "permanence" and important
parts) as a young innocent ten or thirteen year old full of potential,
at some unknown point on a learning curve which might soon be at its
settled-out point, or might just be beginning. ***
http://sandradodd.com/testing

-=-I don't think I ever said this here yet, but I guess one reason I've
thought about this so much was due to my personal experience unschooling
my two kids.-=-

I'm still not clear on the unschooling history from which you're
writing. This post is inconsistent with the note forwarded by
Joyce. The value of this discussion depends on people being as
clear and honest as they can be. Your first writing wasn't addressed
to this list, but was to Joyce, which is fine. Still, consistency is
important if the newer unschoolers are to gain faith in your
perspective.

You wrote " I homeschooled/unschooled my two children through high
school. " DId you homeschool in a dedicated fashion and then change
at some point wholly to unschooling, or are you describing an eclectic
hybrid of schooling with more freedom than some school at home
families use? If throughout that time you were involved in teaching
reading and math, is it possible you have never stepped fully away
from schools?

Sandra

Jenny C

He's a great speller too and we did that
> naturally as well, interestingly enough he spells better than my
> daughter.

My own late reader, spells really well too. I think for her, it had to
do with collecting words. She'd see a word, ask me what it said, I'd
tell her and she rarely forgot it after that. Once she knew enough
words, she was able to read fluently. So all those words, she knew by
how they looked first, not how they sounded. It's a different way of
learning how to read than the system used in schools of sounding out of
words, which made absolutely no sense to her before she knew how to
read.

I'm also wondering if I'm understanding phonemics right. I know it's
different than phonics, which seperates the individual letters and
letter groups. Is phonemics like that one children's TV show in the
70's, I think it was the Electric company, where they had 2 people
facing each other and one would open their mouth and part of a word came
out and the other person would open their mouth and the next part of the
word came out? Here's a clip
<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M98-5g3TYTI> .

When I was a kid, this both baffled and amused me.



[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

k

>>>> When I contacted some of these families a few years later,
some kids were doing fine and others were having trouble, so I saw no
evidence that a screening actually did anything. Except to worry parents
of course, which may be the inherent idea even if the people think they
are well-intentioned and helping the families. <<<<

Considering that most screening is for getting funding for whatever a
group is doing, and is intended not necessarily to help children so
much as to help justify the getting or continuation of funds.

~Katherine

Debbie Harbeson

Sandra,

When I said just dump it, I meant just dump the part where I felt like I
had to defend reading as something valuable. I understand that what
people were trying to say was not that reading wasn't valuable but that
there are so many other ways to learn. And I agree. Hence, the dump
it. Hope that's clearer.

I don't know how you got the idea that I thought screenings were benign.
I don't think that at all. Keep in mind I'm talking about my experience
working in an educational center that teaches reading.

I don't know how you or others here would judge or evaluate my family's
homeschooling experience. I would not say I succeeded in being a
radical unschooler if that's what you mean. Is that okay as far as me
continuing to discuss things on this list?

I also don't know where you comment about honesty came from. From the
start, I have included my full name and anyone could have, and probably
some have already, done a google search to see if I'm out there
anywhere. So I'm unclear on what that was about.

If anyone really wants to know, probably the best way to understand how
homeschooling/unschooling translated into my family is to read the free,
short, humor book I wrote about our family's early homeschooling
experiences a few years back. (If anyone here reads Life Learning
Magazine, an excerpt was published in the Jan/Feb 2005 issue
http://www.lifelearningmagazine.com/0502/JanFeb05.pdf)

The book is available for free download here: www.timeforbedlam.com
<http://www.timeforbedlam.com/>

At the end of the book I have a series of 'interviews' of me, my husband
and our two kids where I explain my philosophy a bit and you can see
more about how it worked for us. But no matter what your educational
philosophy, I think you'll find it a fun read. :-)

Hope that helps explain things better.

Debbie



[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Debbie Harbeson

Jenny,

Sounds like your daughter has great visual memory and imagery and that's
one reason it was better and easier for her to learn to read by sight.

And to your question, simply put, phonemic awareness is the process of
hearing a spoken word and being able to differentiate the individual
sounds that make up the word. It's not about the letters you see, it's
about the sounds you hear. So the word cat for example has three sounds
but the word thought does also. And the word box has 4 individual
phoneme sounds ( b, o, k, s)

And yes, the Electric Company video you linked is dealing with phonemic
awareness. It's working on word patterns and isolating the first sound
in the words. But when the lady says her part, she putting together two
sounds at once so the word is not being said in an entirely isolated
manner. To demonstrate all three sounds separately in those words, it
would have been fun to see three people playing that game.

Debbie

1b.
Fwd: Unschooling and reading
Posted by: "Jenny C" jenstarc4@...   jenstarc4
Thu Feb 5, 2009 9:21 am (PST)


He's a great speller too and we did that
> naturally as well, interestingly enough he spells better than my
> daughter.

My own late reader, spells really well too. I think for her, it had to
do with collecting words. She'd see a word, ask me what it said, I'd
tell her and she rarely forgot it after that. Once she knew enough
words, she was able to read fluently. So all those words, she knew by
how they looked first, not how they sounded. It's a different way of
learning how to read than the system used in schools of sounding out of
words, which made absolutely no sense to her before she knew how to
read.

I'm also wondering if I'm understanding phonemics right. I know it's
different than phonics, which seperates the individual letters and
letter groups. Is phonemics like that one children's TV show in the
70's, I think it was the Electric company, where they had 2 people
facing each other and one would open their mouth and part of a word came
out and the other person would open their mouth and the next part of the
word came out? Here's a clip
<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M98-5g3TYTI> .

When I was a kid, this both baffled and amused me.

Sandra Dodd

-=-When I said just dump it, I meant just dump the part where I felt
like I
had to defend reading as something valuable. I understand that what
people were trying to say was not that reading wasn't valuable but that
there are so many other ways to learn. And I agree. Hence, the dump
it. Hope that's clearer.=-

No, it isn't. "Dump it" where? It's in the archives of this list,
and in the mailboxes of a thousand readers.

Did you mean you had considered what you had read and had changed your
mind? That's something I could easily appreciate, but to ask us to
disregard something or strike it from the record doesn't fit with the
purpose of this list.

-=-I don't know how you got the idea that I thought screenings were
benign.-=-

From what you wrote yesterday and posted to this list.

-=-I don't know how you or others here would judge or evaluate my
family's
homeschooling experience. I would not say I succeeded in being a
radical unschooler if that's what you mean. Is that okay as far as me
continuing to discuss things on this list?-=-

Yes. That's fine. I don't want to ask you to say you failed at being
a radical unschooler, either. You might not even have tried. It would
be more helpful to those trying to understand unschooling if you
wouldn't qualify your statements with allusions to your years of
unschooling, without more clarification.

-=-If anyone really wants to know, probably the best way to understand
how
homeschooling/unschooling translated into my family is to read the free,
short, humor book ...-=-

That's a good offer, and thanks. My concern is the integrity of the
discussions on this list. Consistency and clarity are very important
to me--more important that unschooling.

Sandra
listowner




[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

k

A vast part of phonemic awareness is unconscious though because of
dialect variations and how that plays out in our own pronunciation.

For instance, the "t" in "bit of" is like a "d" sound in my own
pronunciation but elsewhere more distinctly a "t" sound in the way
others pronounce it. And the reason that's important is if anything
phonemic awareness after reading is very different (as sound pictures
go) than pre-reading, and it's a large part of why spelling and
reading through our understanding of spoken language is not
straightforward. Another example is the word "sandwich"... the
combination of "nd" with "w" forces the "nd" to sound like an "m."

It's why phonemic awareness in the context of reading doesn't make as
much sense as we might like it to.

~Katherine



On 2/6/09, Debbie Harbeson <Dtomboy@...> wrote:
> Jenny,
>
> Sounds like your daughter has great visual memory and imagery and that's
> one reason it was better and easier for her to learn to read by sight.
>
> And to your question, simply put, phonemic awareness is the process of
> hearing a spoken word and being able to differentiate the individual
> sounds that make up the word. It's not about the letters you see, it's
> about the sounds you hear. So the word cat for example has three sounds
> but the word thought does also. And the word box has 4 individual
> phoneme sounds ( b, o, k, s)
>
> And yes, the Electric Company video you linked is dealing with phonemic
> awareness. It's working on word patterns and isolating the first sound
> in the words. But when the lady says her part, she putting together two
> sounds at once so the word is not being said in an entirely isolated
> manner. To demonstrate all three sounds separately in those words, it
> would have been fun to see three people playing that game.
>
> Debbie
>
> 1b.
> Fwd: Unschooling and reading
> Posted by: "Jenny C" jenstarc4@... jenstarc4
> Thu Feb 5, 2009 9:21 am (PST)
>
>
>
> He's a great speller too and we did that
> > naturally as well, interestingly enough he spells better than my
> > daughter.
>
>
> My own late reader, spells really well too. I think for her, it had to
> do with collecting words. She'd see a word, ask me what it said, I'd
> tell her and she rarely forgot it after that. Once she knew enough
> words, she was able to read fluently. So all those words, she knew by
> how they looked first, not how they sounded. It's a different way of
> learning how to read than the system used in schools of sounding out of
> words, which made absolutely no sense to her before she knew how to
> read.
>
> I'm also wondering if I'm understanding phonemics right. I know it's
> different than phonics, which seperates the individual letters and
> letter groups. Is phonemics like that one children's TV show in the
> 70's, I think it was the Electric company, where they had 2 people
> facing each other and one would open their mouth and part of a word came
> out and the other person would open their mouth and the next part of the
> word came out? Here's a clip
> <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M98-5g3TYTI> .
>
> When I was a kid, this both baffled and amused me.
>
>
>
>
>
> ------------------------------------
>
> Yahoo! Groups Links
>
>
>
>