Brenda Rose

Oops! One little slip of the finger and I missed a "k" - makes a lot of difference between peeing and peeking, doesn't it? :-)

My three older children began reading while attending public school, so I'm not entirely sure how they were "taught," but I know the oldest, ds David (now 25) has always loved reading and did read in bed. So did third child, dd Martha (21). I think they both still do that. Older dd Sarah (now 23) was (and is) a perfectionist, and when she couldn't read perfectly in first grade she told me she hated it. Being stubborn, or honest, she still does. When I began hsing in 1990 David and Martha spent much of their time reading, and little on "School work." Sarah chose books every year and worked through them methodically, getting up at about 7 am to have her daily work (self-imposed) completed by 9 or 10, because she hated doing it! At the time I was still saying that they should do some "school work", use textbooks or something, so Sarah was the "obedient" child and did that while making herself miserable, while the other two spent their time reading whatever they wanted and then telling me that they didn't do anything in the textbooks because they were busy reading. I would let them "slide by" which always upset Sarah, but when I offered to let her just read she said no, because she hates reading. Oh, well!Of these three, Sarah went to cosmetology school and has been working for 6 years in that. The other two went to college - Martha's a junior and David's in grad school. So maybe they just liked reading better all along, or maybe Sarah's first grade teacher traumatized her in some way, or maybe she just likes being different from her siblings. She thought about college, but didn't want to do the reading (she was interested in law!). She still talks about it sometimes.
My three younger boys have never been in school and have been basically unschooled. I read to them and gave them books, and years ago tried to "teach" phonics. But then I just stopped and let them learn, giving what support they asked for. John (13) began independent reading during the year he was 8, and when 9 yo read the Hobbit (discussing it with his dad, so we know he had good comprehension). James (11) was the same ages, beginning at 8 and when 9 reading two of the Harry Potter books. Youngest ds Joshua (9 last May) is still working on it. He wants to read but thinks that "it's hard." When he reads something (label, sign, church bulletin) I point out that he's reading and he always says either that he recognizes the sign but wouldn't know the word somewhere else, or that it's "an easy word. I've memorized it." I try to explain that reading IS memorizing a lot of words, but he doesn't consider himself a reader yet - and he's not - but he's getting pretty close. Just since summer there's been a huge increase in both his interest and his attempts to read things. So, to sum it up, my six children have read at different times with different amounts of interest, just like they have done other things.

Another parallel about the "real reading" I thought of is toilet-training. Years ago, a friend was always bragging at church how her son age 18 mos. was trained while mine, 20 mos., was not. Her babysitter took off a week and she asked me to watch her son. Monday a.m. she brought him to my house and said, "Just set him on the potty chair every hour and he'll go." I laughed and told her, "He's not trained, you are!" I always considered "toilet trained" to mean basically self-sufficient. I guess that's how I'd look at "really reading" - basically self-sufficient.

Brenda in VA

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