My always radically unschooled 7 year old is reading!
emstrength3
When she was 4, I blogged that I thought she was close to reading. She knew most of her letters and sounds and was very interested in trying. It didn't happen though. Her brain wasn't ready yet.
When she was 6, I thought she was close and she was skills-wise, but time-wise it's been a year since then.
We have never done a "reading lesson." We have never done a curriculum or workbooks. There has never been a single tear over trying to read and I've never pushed her.
I've read many books to her since she was a baby. We've paid attention to the words in our lives- on signs, cereal boxes, labels, video games and everywhere else. She's played starfall. I've told her the sounds of letters as she has been interested. We've played with magnet letters and banana grams. She's played with a few workbooks, and when I say played I really mean just that. The workbooks sit with the coloring books in our house and are treated the same way- use them if and when you want, put them away when you are done. We've played a reading flash card game the same way.
But I've never once sat down with her and said or implied, "Now it's time to try to learn to read."
A few weeks ago, she read The Foot Book and half of another book that was at the doctor's office and I don't remember the name of it. Some of The Foot Book was memorized, but she also sounded out a lot of words and started picking up on some sight words.
Then she didn't do anything reading related for weeks, which is typical. She often has a big interest in something, then drops it for weeks or months, then picks it up again with sudden, new skills.
Yesterday, she was looking for The Foot Book and we couldn't find it. Today, I found it and handed it to her. She read it and then asked for more books to read. I pulled out Green Eggs and Ham and she read the whole thing. I helped her with a few words that couldn't be sounded out and she didn't know from sight, but other than that, she figured it out on her own while I just sat with her.
Her reading was interspersed every few sentences with, "Mom! I'm reading! Hehe! Yay! I'm reading! Hey you know what's more fun than watching tv? Me learning to read!"
(And on that note, we don't restrict tv watching and she could have chosen to do that instead with no pressure to do otherwise. Her sister was actually watching a movie in the same room the whole time she was reading the book. She chose to read).
Emily
When she was 6, I thought she was close and she was skills-wise, but time-wise it's been a year since then.
We have never done a "reading lesson." We have never done a curriculum or workbooks. There has never been a single tear over trying to read and I've never pushed her.
I've read many books to her since she was a baby. We've paid attention to the words in our lives- on signs, cereal boxes, labels, video games and everywhere else. She's played starfall. I've told her the sounds of letters as she has been interested. We've played with magnet letters and banana grams. She's played with a few workbooks, and when I say played I really mean just that. The workbooks sit with the coloring books in our house and are treated the same way- use them if and when you want, put them away when you are done. We've played a reading flash card game the same way.
But I've never once sat down with her and said or implied, "Now it's time to try to learn to read."
A few weeks ago, she read The Foot Book and half of another book that was at the doctor's office and I don't remember the name of it. Some of The Foot Book was memorized, but she also sounded out a lot of words and started picking up on some sight words.
Then she didn't do anything reading related for weeks, which is typical. She often has a big interest in something, then drops it for weeks or months, then picks it up again with sudden, new skills.
Yesterday, she was looking for The Foot Book and we couldn't find it. Today, I found it and handed it to her. She read it and then asked for more books to read. I pulled out Green Eggs and Ham and she read the whole thing. I helped her with a few words that couldn't be sounded out and she didn't know from sight, but other than that, she figured it out on her own while I just sat with her.
Her reading was interspersed every few sentences with, "Mom! I'm reading! Hehe! Yay! I'm reading! Hey you know what's more fun than watching tv? Me learning to read!"
(And on that note, we don't restrict tv watching and she could have chosen to do that instead with no pressure to do otherwise. Her sister was actually watching a movie in the same room the whole time she was reading the book. She chose to read).
Emily
Sandra Dodd
-=-Her reading was interspersed every few sentences with, "Mom! I'm reading! Hehe! Yay! I'm reading! Hey you know what's more fun than watching tv? Me learning to read!"-=-
Nice, Emily! Almost all painless. :-)
Compared to reading classes and workbooks and homework and grades and comparisons and pressure, painless.
And she knows she figured it out, which is priceless.
Sandra
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
Nice, Emily! Almost all painless. :-)
Compared to reading classes and workbooks and homework and grades and comparisons and pressure, painless.
And she knows she figured it out, which is priceless.
Sandra
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]