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-=-Funny - after i read sandra's comment i wrote a note of instruction for my
dd. she looked at me like i was cockoo...i read it to her...i know she could
read it if she wanted to focus her attention on it - ...but she didn't...she
made sure her dad understood my instructions before i left the house.<g>-=-

I wouldn't leave a note if an older person were there. By this...

<< > If a parent can't leave a carefully printed note for a child that
>has important information and know that the child can read it and
>act accordingly, I don't think the child can read.
>>

I meant if you have to leave and when the child wakes up can read a note from
you and know where you are so they can call or know when you'll be back.

It seems a minor difference, maybe, but I wouldn't leave a to-do list for a
new reader.

I might leave a note that says "I went to the store at 9:00 and if you have
problems call Jeff at 256-4568 or dad at work."

If that's beyond a child's comprehension, I would say "not yet reading."

I wouldn't say it to be punitive or to suggest phonics practice and wouldn't
change a thing about my life. I've had three kids who were at points both
before and after the ability to read a serviceable note like that.

I think my personal threshhold is a real, live note because in all these
unschooling discussions we can't help but compare when kids were able to do what.
If someone says a child read at three and someone else says ten, the ages are
pretty easy to grasp from the outside, but the definition of reading isn't.

In school "reading" is often not really reading. It's exercises, recitation,
lists of reading words (these ten words by Friday), or repetition of the same
reading lesson or little story that everyone in the class has been repeating
for days.

Holly wrote long before she could read. She would sound out words or ask how
to spell words, and then read back what she had written. But if I wrote
something else, even if it had the same words she had used, she wouldn't have
been able to read it. So her "reading" was a review of the notation for her
known phrases.

In first grade we learned the pledge of allegiance and we had it written down
at our desks. We could "read" from that but it wasn't really reading, not
even for me and I was the best reader in the class. It was remembering phrases,
and having my memory jogged by words I DID know and what came next.

A paragraph with "indivisible," "allegiance," "republic," "justice" and
"nation" in other contexts would have been FAR beyond me. I only "knew" those
words in that one context. It was a more difficult version of Hop on Pop. And
by more difficult, I partly mean made way, way less sense.

There are probably adults who don't really know the individual words of that
pledge or who couldn't explain in their own words what those things really
mean. And if they do think about it, it's embarrassing to be performing what is
basically a religious-style ceremony that contains bald-faced lies. "Liberty
and justice for all"? Define "all" and try not to have a stroke.

So the idea of "reading" is not so easily measured. So when I myself
discuss it, I bring out my personal yardstick which says "whatever" and "reading
readiness" all along the end where they can tell Burger King from McDonald's and
can recite One Fish, Two Fish when they see the pictures. And then there's a
line across the ruler when they can read something simple they've never seen
before. And then it goes on up to reading aloud weird stuff they've never
seen and not stumbling too badly on a foreign phrase as long as it's French,
Spanish or Latin. (Non-transcribed Chinese and Greek I save for those who are off
my scale <g>.)

Sandra

Have a Nice Day!

If someone says a child read at three and someone else says ten, the ages are
pretty easy to grasp from the outside, but the definition of reading isn't.

In school "reading" is often not really reading. It's exercises, recitation,
lists of reading words (these ten words by Friday), or repetition of the same
reading lesson or little story that everyone in the class has been repeating
for days.

***********

This is absolutely true. So often, I hear from my daughter's friends about how she needs to go to school because she can't read yet.

Just last night my 5 year old niece told me she doesn't like homeschooling because "you don't learn anything". (My brother pulled her out of school bec. he couldn't get her to half day kindergarden so she stays with us. Next year she'll go to 1st grade).

Somehow I think she is parroting something my brother said. oh WELL.

My 8 year old *is*moving in the direction of reading, but she is definetly not fluent. She can read Green Eggs and Ham, and even has to sound out some of the words. But there is definitely an element of memorization and recognition there.

Still, thats way more than last year.

The interesting thing is I'm a girl scout leader of a Junior Troop. The girls are "4th, 5th, and 6th grade" ages. Mine are the only homeschoolers. And some of these girls in this troop can't read any better than my 8 year old mentioned above. Those who struggle with reading are as old as 5th grade, but most are 4th.

And math? Forget it! They are memorizing things and only know how to use those things in the context school gives them. Ask them to apply it to a situation outside of a classroom or worksheet and they can't do it.

Reminds me of the "10th" grader who didn't know the difference between a half dollar and a state specific quarter.

Kristen, who is SOOOOO very glad we are unschooling.

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Lisa H

<<I wouldn't leave a note if an older person were there>>

<lol> the note was as much for my husbands benefit as t'was my dd's.

Lisa H.



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Lisa H

Sandra wrote: If someone says a child read at three and someone else says ten, the ages are pretty easy to grasp from the outside, but the definition of reading isn't.>>

Good point. and something i struggle with when someone asks me if my dd is reading...by what standards are they measuring??? my nephew was reading no better than my dd is at the same age but he had spent years struggling in the system with special ed and tutors and after school programs - his whole self suffered so. Still does from this experience. When someone asks me about my dd I don't want to say "no she is not reading yet...when, in fact, she is reading...just at an earlier place on the yardstick so to speak.

Danielle Wrote: <<I don't know exactly why she will cross that threshold, but I do *know* that she will, and part of that confidence comes from being able to see the "reading" in what she's doing right now.>>

Exactly...i see so clearly the reading my dd's doing right now...i have learned to communicate the subtle changes to my dh along the way as his anxiety is greater than my own and he questions the idea of not spending "time" on "subjects." It's not that we don't spend time on subjects - it's just not that clearly defined as such - and certainly when my dd does ask to "work" on something specific - we do it the way she requests. But so much is happening without consciously "doing" anything about it.

Lisa H.


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