When my friend's son was around 10, she told him that she had a really sore
throat and that any more reading that night would have to be done by
him. (As far as she knew, he wasn't yet reading.) He picked up the (hard)
book and started reading. When she looked at him in shock and asked him
when he had learned to read he said, "I only just figured out that I could."
--Tia
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Did I mention our friend who could read Harry Potter before she learned
the names of all of the letters? As a matter of fact, I'm still not sure
she knows all of the names. Rosie was reading Shakespeare - we were all involved in a Shakespeare company production - BEFORE she knew all the letter names and sounds. She could read the script - she could read it with great expression - having learned it by reading along with the actors, in rehearsal after rehearsal. She had not "just memorized" the play, either. Having figured out how to read the words in that script (probably from a combination of just "word-recognition" and "sounding out" - she was able to read other stuff, too.
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My three youngest have always been unschooled. They are 8, 7 and 2. For a while
when the middle ones were almost 5 and 6, they started doing this program I
had leftover from my oldest. It was phonics stuff. They enjoyed it and did
it maybe 2-3 times a week. They also loved workbook stuff. Like finding
ending or beginning sounds to pictures on the sheets. They were going along
so well and seemed to enjoy it so much that I thought they would be reading
very soon. This all lasted for about a month and a half. The phonics program
was the first to go. That lasted about two weeks. They slowed down a bit on
the worksheets and finally stopped those altogether. They had been doing
them maybe twice a week. When they finished what they had, they said they
didn't want to do anymore. At this same time, I was hearing about other
unschoolers who had very late readers by school standards. I also had a
friend who's son wasn't reading yet at 12 and wasn't concerned at all. The
more I heard, the more I figured to be ready not to freak if our kids did
the same. I was actually okay with it and asked my husband how he would feel
if the kids weren't reading at the age of 12. He said as long as they could
read at 18, he would be okay with it. I knew we'd be fine. Ever since then, the kids haven't done one worksheet or book or program. My son and daughter just both turned 8 and 7 and both are reading. My son reads a bit faster than my daughter but both do well enough to read like a Boxcar kids book and even the info books they have let alone all the golden books and such they read to the baby. I still read to both of them anyway. They love for me to read the Boxcar books to them just because it's more fun to have me read. And I always do. I can't say I taught them to read at all. Somewhere along the line they picked it up themselves. I saw it start with their Pokemon cards and it went from there. Next was the video games on the playstation and road signs. I was very ready for them to not be reading. Made sure no relatives made them feel bad about it either. We were very relaxed around here with them reading or not reading. They have no idea about when kids "should" be reading either. My kids really don't get school at all and don't understand what is expected of them. They have no friends that go to school. So I think some kids will get it earlier and some will get it later. Same as if they were in school but then again the schools don't really give them that chance. My kids are actually reading sooner than I expected. I kind of think about it like potty training. (I hate that term) You can start a baby early and you can get them to do it. You can coax them a bit and have them either do it or fight back and not do it all. You can leave them alone and they either do it when they "should" or do it a lot later. 3 of my kids have been in the later category so maybe that's why I don't sweat other stuff they "should" know.
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I just looked over and Trevor has taken a break from his experimenting to show Sierra some letter sounds on the GeoSafari. This kind of stuff would never happen if the trust wasn't there FIRST. She's reading at five years old, and she KNOWS she taught herself. She says "you showed me stuff Mom, but I learned it all by myself". What confidence, what balance, what self-knowledge these autodidacts possess!! It's been the most magical journey ever. They've taught me so much....
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Kids who aren't taught to read seem to start to read when they want to, and when they're ready just take off. No waiting for the teacher to teach them those hard words. Tim's technique was to just skip anything he couldn't figure out fast enough for his tastes. Eventually he recognized writen sounds fast enough that he could identify a word because he knew it aurally, and didn't skip so many words. He's six now, and hasn't met anything he can't read, although he only survived three pages of one of his father's beloved theology tomes before declaring it "offensively boring"!
To me, the point wasn't when he read, but that he wasn't forced to learn to read. He learned happily, by himself. We were in the process of moving overseas. I was far too frazzled to do any teaching.
Now I see that Tim reads much the way I do. Most days, he reads signs, the funnies, some other parts of the newspaper, maybe a magazine article, and that's about it. Occasionally he reads a book. Swallows it whole, more like. Never let the sun go down on your book is our motto! But he doesn't "Drop Everything And Read" for 20 minutes, twice a day, as the schools promote. If you're not in the mood to read, why read?
My friend's three year old son learned to read when his five year old sister did; he just never bothered to mention that he was listening to her reading lessons. My friend used some phonics books with lists of words and such, and a computer program or two, and to teach her older child to read. But her younger son would later pick up the word lists and recite them himself. By 3 1/2 he could read. While it didn't go over very well with big sister, I think that my friend has a clearer image of what unschooling looks like from that experience. Her son learned on his own because he was ready. If he weren't ready, he would have surely ignored the phonics and gone back to his beloved trains.
Anyway, yes, eight or ten may be the average age for reading fluency, but average includes the extremes. Sixteen is fine to learn to read, and so is three.
Back to other stories of learning to read naturally
Parenting Considerations for Unschoolers
Radical Unschooling