m_aduhene

Hi All,
I'm a lurker and have been greatly encouraged on many occasions by the
posts on this forum. I would like to post now because I am so proud
of my daughter. Two days ago she decided she wanted to read "George's
Marvellous Medicine" to me and she said it was because one of her
friends (who reads fluently) reads to her mum at night. I said ok and
she got along fine with me helping her on unknown words(quite a few
as she only reads what the schools call "sight words" for eg. it, on,
and, the, etc., which she has just picked up by herself along the
way). So we did that last night as well and she surprised me by
being able to read a few more words than I thought she knew.
Then tonight, oh my goodness if she doesn't go and read the word
"ceiling" (and quite a few other words which I was sure she had no
idea how to read). So now I get suspicious because I know I certainly
haven't taught her how to read all these words, so I ask her if she's
been having secret reading lessons and she tells me that she has been
able to read since her 7th birthday(31/12/07. I ask her how she
managed this and she says, in the times she has been upstairs and
reading books for 5 or 10 minutes, she has "just worked out the
words". So I'm not satisfied becos I can't quite believe it(I take a
lot of convincing!) and she says she can read in her head but she
just takes longer to read out loud becos she's not sure how to say the
words. I kind of know what she means...I think she's saying she can
"see" the words in her head and is recognising the patterns and
arrangements of the letters but couldn't quite "get them out". I was
just amazed and then tonight to see it all "fall into place" was a
privilege. I could tell she was "seeing patterns" because if for eg.
she saw "scrunching" she was saying "scratching" . But ceiling amazed
me the most becos there is no way that can be worked out phonetically,
so how she did it?.....well.....she just did. Just as she was falling
asleep she said there was one other way she worked out how to read and
that was by seeing the words on the page as I was reading to her.
So just thought I'd share. I unschool but have my days were I doubt
that I'm doing the right thing for my children (I have 2 more ds 3 and
dd 20 months). We do no workbooks, no curriculum, nothing like school
at all, just live life and have fun.
Thankyou for being here and your reassuring posts which I am sure I
will continue to need.
Blessings
Michelle

Kathleen Gehrke

HURRAY and Congratulations to your daughter and you.

UNSCHOOLING ROCKS!

Kathleen