Susan

Im a lurker and have posted before about my teen girls.

Anyway my DS playes, wii, ds,computer games and watches tv most of his day. we have to read all the words and story lines to him all the time, which becomes a bit too much. He is exposed to words and reading all the time. im not even starting to try and "teach" him to read, as he want nothing to do with the letters and alphabets. My question is 'Does a person need to know the alphabet to learn to read? i know everyone learns differently as ive seen with my girls, they were taught the alphabet in school so when i started homeschooling they already had a foundation in phonics and letters? which i thought at the time contributed to them reading...but now that im unschooling them and my 6yr old i need to rethink about alphabet,letters. I want to start equipping myself with knowledge about it. please send me links on this subject.

Also i want to know how can i make our lives more sparkly and light and joyfull and fun. what is a creative way to connect to the people in our neighborhood? and maybe to start a group. any ideas please...

im afraid our life has become a bit boring and depressing and i have a mind block on how to have fun and help my kids find life very exiting....

Thanks Susan

Joyce Fetteroll

On Jan 20, 2011, at 5:24 AM, Susan wrote:

> 'Does a person need to know the alphabet to learn to read?

Depends on the person.

*But* a person who needs the alphabet to help them understand words
will be playing with the alphabet.

So your son is letting you know what he needs by not being fascinated
by the alphabet!

I think that's one of the foundational ideas about unschooling. School
assumes the child can't possibly know what they need so kids need
certain information pushed into them before they can move on.

But we humans built to find patterns in the world. Kids will be
naturally drawn to whatever they need to figure out a pattern. If a
child needs the alphabet, they'll be interested in it. Trust that
process.

That's why it's important for unschooling to flow well to have lots of
different resources -- including video games :-) As you get to know
your kids better, you will be able to narrow down what's likely to
appeal. But variety is good. They don't know what's available in the
world. If a child never sees the alphabet -- or the Hindenberg or
banana slugs -- they can't know whether they'll find it intriguing or
not!

Many people learn to read by sight. They absorb words whole. It's only
later after they've accumulated hundreds and hundreds of examples that
they can see or be interested in the parts that make the words up.

Schools can't support that method. They need to test kids'
understanding regularly. And they can't test when kids are absorbing
whatever random words that fascinate them. Which is why it's important
to see that schools don't use the "best" teaching methods. They use
methods that will allow them to test to see if information is going
in. Not necessarily whether the child understands! Or whether the
information sticks. Just whether it was in the child's head in some
way that can show up on a test.

It's not that teachers want that. They do want kids to understand! But
they're confined to methods that can be tested.

Joyce

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Sandra Dodd

-=-. My question is 'Does a person need to know the alphabet to learn to read? i know everyone learns differently as ive seen with my girls, they were taught the alphabet in school so when i started homeschooling they already had a foundation in phonics and letters? which i thought at the time contributed to them reading...but now that im unschooling them and my 6yr old i need to rethink about alphabet,letters. I want to start equipping myself with knowledge about it. please send me links on this subject.-=-

My kids watched Sesame Street and they had funny songs and skits about letters all the time in those days (maybe still). I used to sing the alphabet to them when they were babies just as I sang other songs. And on Sesame street they would have guest stars sing or say the alphabet in different ways.

I remember Lena Horne doing a jazz version. I found this on YouTube.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IpIhzFh0yw8

Ah, Lena Horne:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i0TyUOJfpQo


I've come up here to cut in with something really cool, one of my kids' favorites, and it's still played in the car sometimes.
The first one is background and is a low-quality fragment, but worth looking at in preparation for the second one:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RCWkF6RpR7E
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h_3gJRa3DKI&feature=related

Billy Joel:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0YwBs7QrJDM&feature=related

Patti LaBelle:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G0hYxuDav0g&feature=channel

Here's a cartoon of a "Rube Goldberg Alphabet":
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B17OvPYM040

My favorite ever, which I had recorded onto a best of Sesame Street VHS tape for my kids:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2eLPPxSdwJw
BEAUTIFUL music and more beautiful art. From the 70's when such things were still done by hand.

Found letters (video, then closing in on the letter, on signs and manhole covers and grafitti
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WRizPAydpW8&feature=related

Alphabet Jungle
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DIRRbVjVVMs&feature=related

Here's Billy Joel and Marlee Matlin singing (and signing) "Just the Way Your Are," a special version for Oscar the Grouch. Sometimes they cut just to Billy Joel, so I missed the grouchier and grouchier sign.

There are more alphabet songs, but it might be fun to find them while you're out there at youtube or the sesame street page.

Sandra

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

k

I think looking at the alphabet as foundational to reading is exactly the
same as looking at addition (or building up from a base) as foundational to
sculpture. Sculpture however is also found objects (whole objects) and
subtraction (removing layers to get underneath). Reading is the same. It can
be approached in several different ways. By different individuals. As well
as by the same person.

Schooling gets in the way of learning to read by insisting things like that
learning the alphabet is foundational to reading. It isn't. You can pick it
up in other ways.

I was very much drawn to fonts and shapes of whole words. I love calligraphy
because it can reveal the "body" of a word's unique shape. The Chi Ro book
(Book of Kell) is so amazing because no matter how falsely colored or even
uncolored it is, the shape of those famous words is instantly recognizable.
Because I am drawn to word shapes I can spell words very easily. If the
shape is wrong I know it's misspelled. The word "the" is perfect but not if
you switch the letters around and change the shape to "teh" which is nothing
like the same shape even though it has the same exact letters.

I'd say the biggest reason I might be drawn to whole words is not because I
don't understand the alphabet but because I'm better at recognizing things
that are whole than recognizing pieces of them or their sequences. When I
get to the sequence portions in IQ tests, I can remember sequences by
recalling the whole shape, if that's the way they're presented. Otherwise, I
have a harder time remembering the order things come in and I slow way way
down.

Phonics was hard for me because I don't hear well and also because English
varies what you can do with a single letter QUITE a bit. Not a total loss
but not the most helpful way for me to learn either. I remember intonation,
phrasing and speed in people's voices very well and can often pick out who's
speaking because it's like hearing the shape of a person's voice. Again,
it's easiest for me to learn things by experiencing the whole thing, at
least at first.

~Katherine




On Thu, Jan 20, 2011 at 8:31 AM, Joyce Fetteroll <jfetteroll@...>wrote:

>
> On Jan 20, 2011, at 5:24 AM, Susan wrote:
>
> > 'Does a person need to know the alphabet to learn to read?
>
> Depends on the person.
>
> *But* a person who needs the alphabet to help them understand words
> will be playing with the alphabet.
>
> So your son is letting you know what he needs by not being fascinated
> by the alphabet!
>
> I think that's one of the foundational ideas about unschooling. School
> assumes the child can't possibly know what they need so kids need
> certain information pushed into them before they can move on.
>
> But we humans built to find patterns in the world. Kids will be
> naturally drawn to whatever they need to figure out a pattern. If a
> child needs the alphabet, they'll be interested in it. Trust that
> process.
>
> That's why it's important for unschooling to flow well to have lots of
> different resources -- including video games :-) As you get to know
> your kids better, you will be able to narrow down what's likely to
> appeal. But variety is good. They don't know what's available in the
> world. If a child never sees the alphabet -- or the Hindenberg or
> banana slugs -- they can't know whether they'll find it intriguing or
> not!
>
> Many people learn to read by sight. They absorb words whole. It's only
> later after they've accumulated hundreds and hundreds of examples that
> they can see or be interested in the parts that make the words up.
>
> Schools can't support that method. They need to test kids'
> understanding regularly. And they can't test when kids are absorbing
> whatever random words that fascinate them. Which is why it's important
> to see that schools don't use the "best" teaching methods. They use
> methods that will allow them to test to see if information is going
> in. Not necessarily whether the child understands! Or whether the
> information sticks. Just whether it was in the child's head in some
> way that can show up on a test.
>
> It's not that teachers want that. They do want kids to understand! But
> they're confined to methods that can be tested.
>
> Joyce
>


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Nina Kvitka

One great, related thing they do on Sesame Street now is have celebrities introduce a new word, sort of by acting it out.

One of my favorites is Maggie Gyllenhaal telling us that "A surprise is when something happens that you don't expect." And then a bunch of monsters surprise her, and they check to see whether a second surprise works when you do it again right after the first one.

In very short clips, they really get across the connotations of some words that are a little more complex.

David Beckham and Elmo talk about Persistence: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vq4wrPL1o4s

When I google "sesame street persistent" and then click the top YouTube clip result, the Youtube page offers a whole long right column of these word skits. Kobe Bryant does Miniature; LL Cool J does Unanimous; Heidi Klum does Compliment.

--Nina


--- On Thu, 1/20/11, Sandra Dodd <Sandra@...> wrote:
<<<<<<<<

My kids watched Sesame Street and they had funny songs and skits about
letters all the time in those days (maybe
still).>>>>>>














[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

plaidpanties666

"Susan" <suzisword@...> wrote:
>'Does a person need to know the alphabet to learn to read?**************

Six is still pretty young to be reading or even starting to read. It has become a cultural phenomenon to push the alphabet at kids really early, but knowing the alphabet at 3 doesn't guarantee reading at 6. Knowing the alphabet doesn't necessarily contribute to learning to read. It can even get in the way.

My stepson and a friend of mine's daughter both found paying attention to letters and sounds got in the way of reading when they were first learning (homeschooling, not unschooling). I remember watching Ray puzzle his way through a word and then not remember that word by the time he'd puzzled his way through the next - but he could read short sentences if he recognized the words already. My girlfriend saw something similar with her daughter, but even more so - she could read whole sentences but not all the individual words in them, and couldn't identify all the letters. Both kids could "decode" words using letter-sound correspondences *after* they had learned to read, but not before.

Morgan, otoh, fell in love with the alphabet and reading at 4 and had a wonderful time cracking the code. By then I'd found unschooling and was pretty awe-struck to see her spend hours sounding-out short books, going back and correcting herself when a word didn't make sense in context... just like teachers tell people the "should" do, but no-one was teaching Mo. It was just the most logical way for her to get what she wanted.

Once she cracked the code (a few months) she dropped reading for a couple years. That's something else that you lose sight of with schoolish thinking - learning doesn't depend on some kind of steady progress and regular practice, necessarily. For a few months, Mo read, then stopped, then picked it up again later.

If you want books about how reading happens naturally, a reasonably good one is "Literacy Through Play". Its set in an open-classroom sort of environment, but it does a good job of laying out all the different factors that go into developing *literacy* which may be helpful if you're getting bogged down in "reading".

---Meredith

Sandra Dodd

In general, about knowing the alphabet, we sang a lot when the kids were little and I sang the alphabet to babies, when there were toddlers around, so they could sing with me, and sang it to Kirby when he was an only. I figured if it was just one of the many songs he knew, he would have that information in him.

When he was a walking baby still in diapers, we visited a La Leche League leader's home--not the leader of my group, but there was a gathering and we were over there. He was pointing at the magnetic letters on the fridge and naming some of them. Kathy, the hostess, squatted down next to him and he named a few more. She asked him what his name was an how old he was. He looked at her and thought, and then turned back and pointed at "M" and said "M" very clearly. He was too little to know how old he was, and he couldn't say his name clearly yet. He said "Turby" for years.

I went to look for that account in my "Kirby Diary," one word file I have always backed up and replaced on every new computer. I didn't find that story, but found this which has a couple of tie-ins. It's a clean cut, unedited. I left the first one because it had the year. Kirby was born July 29, 1986, so he had just turned five.
----------------
Thu, Aug 8, 1991

Went to spend the night with Grandma and Grandpa in their trailer at the Monticello trailer park on Central.

August 15

�Why do things on earth need the letters of the alphabet?�

[sometime the same day:] he was talking about wanting to go back to dance class, and I reminded him he had hated dance class. He said, �I don�t mean the dance class where I dance and cry. I mean the class where I learn stuff.� (On further questioning, it turned out he meant his art class.)

Friday, August 16

This week Kirby has been talking about �the West,� and cowboys, and the desert, and the Old West a lot. I tried again to discuss directions with him, and I talked about history, with examples like when Kirby was little we didn�t have a patio, and now we do, and when Marty was little we didn�t have a door to the patio, and now we do, and when the new baby comes those things will have been there his whole life. He seemed to be getting the idea that the cowboys used to be in this same place, but it was a long time ago, and that before our house was built, it was the desert right where our house is, etc.

His most interesting expression about the whole matter was �People who live in the East never get to see the sun go down.�

Keith and I took him and Marty �to see the sun set out West in the desert.� We drove out Friday after work to the other side of Bernalillo, where Keith knew of a dirt road that leads to Rio Rancho. We drove off on an old leftover bit of highway, and off on this dirt road. (We took some pictures, so that�ll be in the kids� books.) It was a little muddy, and they found good sticks (Yucca stalks) and we saw cactus and could find no animal tracks at all, even though the road and a little wash had been very well cleared out by the rain and were muddy (dry enough to walk on, mostly).. We found a horse�s jawbone with teeth (which Keith scouted out and let Kirby �find� and pull out of the mud) but Kirby wasn�t as impressed by that as he should�ve been. The sun went down, and we came back. Kirby fell asleep on the way home and he was satisfied (for a while) about the west and the desert.

Mon, Aug 19, 1991

For the past couple of days Kirby has started saying, if he and Marty are playing any make-believe (Turtles, Lego, etc.), �We�ll be right back after these messages.� That means he needs to go to the bathroom and he wants Marty to wait for him. Today, after he was finished in the toilet, he ran back saying, �We now return to our program.�

Sat, Aug 31, 1991

Kirby and Marty were playing with toy dinosaurs on Keith�s bed. There were kids, and a baby, and a mom, and a dad, and family friends who had brought a present, a magnifying glass �But you have to share it, even with the baby,� they said. Kirby was being the dad and Marty was being the baby (and other kids) and �the dad� said, �Do you kids want to play with me?� The babies (Marty) said �Yeah! Yeah!� �The Dad� said, �Well, sorry. First I have to type and write and a lot of boring stuff, and when I finish that I�ll play with you.� OOOh--I thought I was the parent to get stuck with that reputation. I guess it�s me and Keith both.

September 4, 1991

Kirby had been playing with Kyla and Dane (at James� birthday party at Kit Carson Park), and on the way home he said, �Kyla�s older than Dane, right?�

�Right.�

�Why?� [and then his own pause] ��and don�t tell me it�s because she was born first.�

When he�d talked to me about why he was older than Marty, I�d said because he was born first; because he was already out of me when Marty wasn�t even born yet.

--------------------------

Those two classes, the art and dance classes, are the main reason we homeschooled that first year, which led to all those other years. The "out west" day is the first photo in Moving a Puddle, page vi.

Because of singing and Sesame Street, all my kids knew the alphabet before they knew what it was called. But as to what it's called, sometimes "the ABCs." And sometimes "alphabet" which is short for "alpha beta" which is "AB." Some people are naturally more interested in language than other people. I am, and my kids are. Because the subject line is "alphebet," I'm guessing the mom who asked isn't very interested in language and might not have thought of the "alpha" in "alphabet." So possibly there are other "intelligences" primary in that family.

http://sandradodd.com/intelligences

Reading comes when it comes, and if it's pressed too hard too soon, it comes painfully and haltingly, or perhaps the child decides (or is told) that he is "not a reader," so he loses the will and ability to let it come naturally.

I think playing with the alphabet should be done if it's not too painful for the mom to do that. We used to play with other words that started with same letters or same sounds, just in the car, or with letters on the fridge or with letters on cardboard boxes, or the kids' names. Marty and Monkey, and Kirby and Kangaroo.

Sandra





[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Jenny Cyphers

***He is exposed to words and reading all the time. im not even starting to try
and "teach" him to read, as he want nothing to do with the letters and
alphabets.***

My experience, is that EVERY person that comes to our house, young or old, LOVES
our letter refrigerator magnets. If I had workbooks sitting out with letters
that one could trace to help kids learn the alphabet, my guess, is that everyone
would forgo those and go straight to the fridge. New messages get made daily
with the magnet letters. Everyone is interested in them. It's fun! In the
same room, we have a table and behind one of the kitchen benches is a huge
chalkboard. Messages and pictures are made all the time. It's fun! It's
learning! Other people's creations, drawings and sayings, are corrected and
changed regularly! Sometimes new things show up mysteriously and everyone tries
to guess who did it or who wrote it. Sometimes it is up for weeks until we
figure out who it was.

I have a magnet on my fridge that says "I bet you thought that everyone at
Wilson smokes weed... 70% Do... where do you fit in?" Wilson is a nearby high
school. It used to say "70% Don't", but Chamille used opaque marker to cover it
up. You can't tell because it's white letters on a black background. It's
word play, altering the meaning with altering the letters. That little magnet
also brought up percentages. Chamille asked how many 70% was. I told her that
if you had 10 kids lined up, that 70% would be 7 of those kids. She thought the
statistics were inaccurate, so felt obliged to change it. That led to another
discussion about where the magnet came from, it does have a logo on it, and how
they potentially may have gotten their numbers and why they may be inaccurate,
or not.

Unschooling is made up of those kinds of moments, those little moments of
magnets and drawings and discussions that lead to little bits of understanding
about the world that connect to other little bits of understanding to make up a
larger view.

***My question is 'Does a person need to know the alphabet to learn to read?***

What a person needs is peace and joyful play. If words and letters and numbers
and patterns are fun to play with, kids will do so. If that leads to reading,
it will lead to reading. If it leads to that little bit of understanding about
the world that connects to other little bits, then THAT is what it leads to.
I've never met an unschooled kid that doesn't eventually learn how to read,
given the time and space to do so.







[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Sandra Dodd

-=-***My question is 'Does a person need to know the alphabet to learn to read?***

What a person needs is peace and joyful play. If words and letters and numbers
and patterns are fun to play with, kids will do so. If that leads to reading,
it will lead to reading. If it leads to that little bit of understanding about
the world that connects to other little bits, then THAT is what it leads to.
I've never met an unschooled kid that doesn't eventually learn how to read,
given the time and space to do so.-=-

They might need peace and joyful play involving the alphabet and words, though.

I'm concerned about answering a question like "Does a person need X to learn?"

Unschooling should be expansive, not cheap or limiting. Unschooling can't work if the parents are trying to see how little they can do and still succeed. Or how little time they can spend with kids and still have the same result others are getting who aren't limiting time at all.

Unschooling needs more and more of more and more things. A life in which a six year old hasn't become familiar with the alphabet naturally seems to me to be a limited life.

Sandra

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Chris Sanders

> *** I think playing with the alphabet should be done if it's not too
> painful for the mom to do that. We used to play with other words
> that started with same letters or same sounds, just in the car, or
> with letters on the fridge or with letters on cardboard boxes, or
> the kids' names. Marty and Monkey, and Kirby and Kangaroo.***

Yesterday, Zoe (13) was embarrassed because her voice teacher asked
her, "What comes after 'F' and she drew a blank for a few moments. Zoe
can read and write beautifully, she can identify all the letters by
name and discuss the different sounds one might use them to write, but
she didn't memorize the order of the alphabet letters thoroughly. She
can recite them in order beginning with 'A' though, so she did
memorize them, just not well enough to start anywhere in the list and
know the next letter.


We played with the alphabet when Zoe was little - I sang songs,
offered Sesame Street videos that Zach adored when he was little,
offered to play children's tapes on car drives. I even had a
schoolroom-like alphabet border that ran around our kitchen at first
and later Zoe's room. She never cared much for any of it and
preferred that I NOT play audio-tapes in the car or videotapes for her
on TV. We had two kinds of alphabet magnets on our fridge - the hard
plastic ones that I remember from my childhood, and some softer foamy
ones I bought in a tub. We also had word magnets. Zoe showed little
interest in any of them, I didn't worry.

Yesterday, she asked me if she was dumb because she didn't know the
answer to her voice teacher's question, quickly. I told her that she
just had never really cared about knowing the order of the letters in
the alphabet. I told her about how I sometimes still have to recite a
few letters in a row to come up with the next letter in the alphabet.
We talked about how I use knowing the order of the alphabet to do
filing at work and of course how music notation is labeled with the
first seven letters of the alphabet.

Zoe loves YouTube and singing and has a fondness for Sesame Street too
so I shared Sandra's list of links with her. Maybe she'll want to
learn the order of the alphabet - maybe she won't. She likes to look
up songs on YouTube and she memorizes the lyrics and tunes and I'm
often amazed at how well she can remember them from just a couple of
listens.

Chris in IA




[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

lalow

>
> Yesterday, she asked me if she was dumb because she didn't know the
> answer to her voice teacher's question, quickly. I told her that she
> just had never really cared about knowing the order of the letters in
> the alphabet. I told her about how I sometimes still have to recite a
> few letters in a row to come up with the next letter in the alphabet.
> We talked about how I use knowing the order of the alphabet to do
> filing at work and of course how music notation is labeled with the
> first seven letters of the alphabet.

I remember in school a game that our teacher did where she would call out a word and everyone would look it up in the dictionary as fast as you could. I NEVER EVER won, because I had to say the whole entire alphabet each and everytime to figure out where that first letter was. I thought I was dumb. I am still very very slow looking up things in the dictionary or in the phone book. Good thing now I get to google it.

Jenny Cyphers

***They might need peace and joyful play involving the alphabet and words,
though.

I'm concerned about answering a question like "Does a person need X to
learn?"***

Good point! There are many ways to have peaceful joyful play involving the
alphabet. Refrigerator magnets can do that! That is just one way that we enjoy
the alphabet. We play scrabble sometimes too. Games are great!

It seems to me that there are layers there. One layer is that peace and joy are
great for learning. Another, is that there needs to be that hotbed of
information available and accessible. Yet another, is the seeing the learning
in everything, even things that don't at all seem schoolish or educational.
Then, the 4th aspect is the relationship built between the parent/s and the
child/ren.

I've given this a lot of thought lately! When unschooling is at its height of
awesome, all of those parts are in play. Sometimes while going about life, one
or two of those things get dropped and unschooling can falter. I try to keep
all of those things going day to day, so that it doesn't falter.





[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Lisa E Biesemeyer

" the seeing the learning in everything, even things that don't at all seem
schoolish or educational."

Waldorf/Steiner style education has a way of introducing letters that involves
seeing letters in the environment. We have a book by Famke Zonneveld, "Waldorf
Alphabet Book," that has gorgeous watercolor illustrations of the letters in
real life. For example, an illustration of a man jumping with his arms straight
up in the air in line with his body and his legs bent at the knees is J. This
blog shows what I mean:

http://atasteofwaldorf.blogspot.com/2007/06/teaching-alphabet.html

I have seen photos of some Waldorf-y type homeschoolers who made letters out of
food, dirt, grass, rocks, etc.


Rowan is totally into doing this if it also means getting dirty :) She and her
dad took veggies (and rocks) from our garden last summer and spelled out their
names. She had a great time doing it, and LOVED seeing *her* letters so big and
beautiful.

Lisa B

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Susan

My DS can sing the alphabet, we also do have a puzzle on our fridge of the alphabet that you mach with a word that starts with the letter. But he only sometimes makes a turn. His sister will hide letters in scribling and then he must find it, he enjoys that. when he playes games he has learnt what word is "quit" "save" "yes" "no" but when its a new game i show him again the old words but they look difrent because they have a diffrent font or colour. We play comuter games where they say a sentence and he must put in the missing word, which i help him with, he likes it.

So im hearing that the alphabet is not the key to unlock or decode words. We do play with the alphabet in non schooly ways, but it not foundational. my son sings his sisters songs, then askes what are words mean all the time. I still sometimes think things have to happen in a certain order. i asked my husband the other day does a person really need the alphabet to read and he said "hell yes". But he didnt convince me, i tried to find articals on unschool sites but ssssssooooo much info to sort through.

There was a period of time where all he wanted to do was count, and measure,he measured every thing and always wanted me to count to any numbert he said. We made cupcakes to measure and sprinkled choc sprinklers on and as it was finished he got so mad with himself and said " aaaaarrrgggg Why does my body always tell me to count" and he proceded to count the sprinkles. It is my unschooling story to tell everyone who doesnt believe that kids will learn, because it is natural.

I love to read, but im a terrible speller, sometimes what i want to say i cant convey properly in written form, i keep redoing so much of my writing so that it matches close to what i want to say.

Sandra Dodd

-=-So im hearing that the alphabet is not the key to unlock or decode words. -=-

I don't think anyone said that.

You can neither require the alphabet nor ignore it.
You can neither force it nor prevent it.
We don't know, and you don't know, and your child doesn't know what all he needs to learn to read. Reading doesn't happen because of a curriculum, and it doesn't happen the same way for everyone.


-=-We do play with the alphabet in non schooly ways, but it not foundational.-=-

I don't know what you mean by "foundational."
It's not a good unschooling term, though.


-=-my son sings his sisters songs, then askes what are words mean all the time. I still sometimes think things have to happen in a certain order. i asked my husband the other day does a person really need the alphabet to read and he said "hell yes". But he didnt convince me-=-

If you and your husband agree that is needed, that doesn't make it so. If you both agree that it's not needed, that doesn't make it true.


-=- i tried to find articals on unschool sites but ssssssooooo much info to sort through.-=-

You don't need to sort through it all. You can't read it all at once.
Read a little, try a little, wait a while, watch.

http://sandradodd.com/reading

It will all look different to you if you read it again later. And if you read it after your son is reading really well, it will look different in other ways.

Sandra

Jenny Cyphers

***I have seen photos of some Waldorf-y type homeschoolers who made letters out
of
food, dirt, grass, rocks, etc. ***

This reminded me of drawing messages in the sand at the beach! Or drawing in
one's food. It's playing with things of the everyday, it's playing with life
and the things that make up living. I don't know how to explain it. I see it
though. I've seen the lack of play in other people's homes and recognized that
it's something that is very much a part of how we live in our home and
operational in lots of unschooling homes.

Maybe others have some good examples of playing with the everyday parts of
life...





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sheeboo2

---***I have seen photos of some Waldorf-y type homeschoolers who made letters out
of food, dirt, grass, rocks, etc. ***-----

>>>>> This reminded me of drawing messages in the sand at the beach! Or drawing in
one's food. <<<<<< -----

It reminded me of that too! And also drawing letters/words on a child's back, arm or hand. My dd could read words I drew on her before she was comfortable reading text on paper.

Brie

sheeboo2

--It reminded me of that too! And also drawing letters/words on a child's back,
arm or hand. My dd could read words I drew on her before she was comfortable
reading text on paper.---

That wasn't very clear, sorry. I didn't mean writing with ink--although my dd does a lot of that too, now--I meant tracing letters with your finger somewhere on the child's skin.

Brie

lalow

When my son Ben learned to read he did not know all of his alphabet or the order of it but he knew some letters from games, walking around in the graveyard across the street which had the row lettered, and watching leapfrog videos that chose from the library. He started reading whole words, then started noticing letter combinations, letter sounds, then started seeing patterns, and soon he was reading. He is 8 now, I actually dont know that he would be able to id every single upper and lower case letter, I know he cant write them all cause he asks me sometimes how to make some letters but he reads everything he wants to read, including books of all kinds that he might be interested in. He just finished that Diary of Wimpy Kid series. He never went to school and although although I did try to teach his older brother to read for a short while and I never bothered Ben about it... just helped him when he asked and followed his lead.

Sandra Dodd

-=-Maybe others have some good examples of playing with the everyday parts of
life...-=-

Writing with water on a hot summer day, writing with a stick on the sand:
http://justaddlightandstir.blogspot.com/2011/01/real-reading.html
http://sandradodd.com/geography

A playful attitude toward one's possessions:
http://sandradodd.com/museum
http://sandradodd.com/strewing

Playing with concepts:
http://sandradodd.com/checklists
http://sandradodd.com/art
http://sandradodd.com/music
http://sandradodd.com/history

Playing with the whole world of ideas, and with the contents of one's mind, with the aid of the directions and some sticks:
http://sandradodd.com/thinkingsticks

Playing with every song one has ever heard, and words:
http://lyricsgame.blogspot.com

Playing with young children:
http://sandradodd.com/youngchildren

Playing side by side while having a serious conversation:
http://sandradodd.com/truck

About playing itself:
http://sandradodd.com/playing

It starts:

Play can be serious business. Playing is certainly the main way that very young children learn, until they go to school.

What if they don't go to school? What if the ages of five and six don't mark a life change, and the playing progresses along naturally?

Many people would have no idea how to answer that question. The idea that toddlers' play would naturally progress to other levels without interruption, without separation from families, and without professionals telling children when, where and how to play is foreign to most in our culture.

In one small corner, though, it's common knowledge. There are unschoolers whose children have not been to school and who have continued to play.

Recently on a discussion list someone said sure, she understood how young children learn through play, but what about when they got older and stopped playing?

I have known people who stopped playing, but I was never one of them. (...and it continues)



Sandra




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Sandra Dodd

-=-It reminded me of that too! And also drawing letters/words on a child's back, arm or hand. My dd could read words I drew on her before she was comfortable reading text on paper.-=-

My mom and I did that, scratching each other's backs, when I was seven or eight.
Someone wrote (was it on this list?) just in the past couple of days about the best childhood memories being of parents being happy. That's one of my memories of my mom being completely relaxed, at peace and in the moment, and paying gentle physical attention to ME. Just me. I have very few of those memories. I hope my children will never have a problem thinking of times I was paying attention to them without criticism or threat.

Halfway through that paragraph above I had wet eyes, and by the end, tears fell right out of me. I can hear Holly moving around upstairs. My office is right under her room. I'm going to go up and offer to make her breakfast. I did yesterday, too. I hope I do it tomorrow.

Having a mother who offers to make you breakfast, and touches you nicely... those are things that help children learn to read naturally and gently.

Sandra

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Ed Wendell

Zachariah used to write & draw on the shower door when it got all steamed up. He wrote his name - Zac - a lot

We take bits and pieces from movies, songs, etc and incorporate it into our lives for a while - until we replace it with something else. For example when he was really little and loved the movie Bambie, when we saw a lot of birds we'd say "bird" in that funny Bambie way. Then there was Jungle Book where the crows do their "watch you wanna do" routine and we thought that was funny - we still bring sayings back / recycle them once in a while. We use Monty Python's sketch of "A Boot To The Head". Simon & Garfunkel's "slip slide and away" has been popular the last couple of weeks due to the snow and ice. Sometimes we accidentally say something funny and then we use that for a while.

Lisa W.


-=-Maybe others have some good examples of playing with the everyday parts of
life...-=-



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Karen James

Some things we did with letters when our son was younger included:

- We had foam letters and bath crayons in the tub. We would play the
video games he liked using letters. Actually, our son thought up these
games. One was a Blockus/Tetris style of game, matching colours, but the
letters were inevitably included in the arrangements. Also, I would leave
simple notes, using either the bath crayons or foam letters, on the wall of
the tub before he got in. He would be so excited, asking what it said.
Sometimes he would try to copy it. Otherwise, he would just go on to
drawing other things.
- I made letter pretzels and pancakes. Usually my son would ask what's
this?! which would lead to some letter fun. It lasted however long it
lasted while we ate. Sometimes we would see if we could erase the letters
from the surface of store-bought letter cookies, or chew letters into
store-bought pretzels.
- Our son loves to hop around, and he loves happy faces. I would cut out
some circles, make happy faces and put letters on the noses and tape them
down the hall. He loved hopping from room to room this way. Sometimes he
said the letters, sometimes not, but he always enjoyed the hopping.
- I would make secret spy notes to him with a spy pen we picked up. It
is possible to make one yourself. I have seen them online.
- We liked to play mail delivery. Our son thought up this game. He took
a cereal box and turned it into a mail box with a flag. I would write a
very simple note and deliver it, making sure to lift the flag. He would
retrieve it.
- We pressed letters into playdough.

These are some examples of how we encorporated some letter fun into our
days. These ideas may not be relevant for your family, but using your son's
interests, you can strew letters like anything else, and see what
connections he makes.


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Lisa E Biesemeyer

In November, I got Rowan some crayons for writing on glass/windows. We have
since spent a great deal of time drawing on the windows, writing words (her
name, my name, phrases, etc). She has loved it so much that a couple of days
ago, I bought her some crayons for the tub. Yesterday she and my boys (14mo)
wrote all over the bath tub. Rowan drew pictures, but she mostly spent her time
writing her name and asking me how to write her brothers' names.

Lisa B




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sheeboo2

All the Sesame Street videos reminded me of the wonderful 3rd Bass hip hop song "al'z a-b-c'z"

Warning: may not be appropriate for all ages. Watch it first by yourself to decide:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SRXrfNWvHZc

When I looked for it, the Wikipedia page on "The Alphabet Song" came up--looks like there are some other neat ones, especially sung backwards: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alphabet_song

Which reminded me about this, Al Green version by comic Marc Eddie, which is G-rated (although lots of his other skits aren't):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UGYPyg70F6g&playnext=1&list=PLE08F8D468A8F0316&index=3

Brie

Pam Sorooshian

On 1/21/2011 6:46 AM, Sandra Dodd wrote:
> Recently on a discussion list someone said sure, she understood how
> young children learn through play, but what about when they got older
> and stopped playing?
>
> I have known people who stopped playing, but I was never one of them.
> (...and it continues)

My kids had some problems with friends around the age of 11 or 12 when
some of the friends stopped wanting to play and started wanting to stand
around and talk (mostly about boys, some about how mean their moms were).

-pam

Susan

Thank you im seeing it more clearly, since the process of deschooling ive had to rethink everything i thought i knew. We tend to think that if it happend a certain way for our other kids (who were schooled till grade2)that is how it will be with our other kids.

We also play with words alot, we name our animals and then build it up and give it sparkles, eg our dog is "bella" but we say "asla baslajie" which is africaans, our cat is "stroof" but we have added "stroof-a-litious" as in bootalicios... we ryme alot in our family, see u later aligater, in a while crocadile.I have alot of writing on my wall and the kids have a wall in their room they can write on.

The process and thought of unschooling is so natural, but we as parent need unlearning and shifting our mind to see diffrently than what we were "taught".I keep saying to myself trust the process, because i tend to want to control and change and push. Sandra said once, " the more control u had, the more they will kattapalt if u let go of all control all at once, so go slowly. (my words).

My 14 year old daughter can read africaans and i didnt "teach" her, we speak africaans and english at home, But her main language is english. Africaans just became natural to read. Play ,play, play, play. I think I will write that on my wall, to remind myself.

Alex

> Six is still pretty young to be reading or even starting to read. >It has become a cultural phenomenon to push the alphabet at kids >really early, but knowing the alphabet at 3 doesn't guarantee >reading at 6. Knowing the alphabet doesn't necessarily contribute to >learning to read. It can even get in the way.

After leaving a short career as a primary teacher, I did a TON of reading on reading instruction around the world. The thing that popped out at me the most was that the schools--invariably not in the US--that have programs that seem like they have the most kids reading in the least time all start with the sound instead of the name of the lower case and not the upper case letters. The sounds and the lower case letters are what you use the most when reading. Heck, I can sound out Hebrew, and I only know the names of half the letters, and it doesn't make a bit of difference. So the slew of "educational" toys and games on the American market are kind of approaching the whole thing backwards! and likely doing a lot to confuse kids. I wouldn't say no if my daughter asked for any of it, but I have tried to support her interest in letters and sounds with explanations/products/books etc that seem to be the least confusing. That sounds like a lot more than we really do. :) Basically I mean that though we have lots of nerdy stuff for both kids and adults in constant circulation through our house, I've avoided the stuff for small kids that are about capital letter names.

Alex N.

k

Yes this is what I was trying to get across. It's the phoneme attachment to
the symbol ... not the symbol name attached to the symbol ... that helps
with acquiring written language. This is even true for learning spoken
language. The same is true of using grammar/syntax without knowing what is
meant by the words "verb, noun, adjective" etc. Also when thinking about
numbers, it isn't necessary to know what the terms "addition, subtraction,
multiplication, division" mean in order to use numbers.

Those are academic conventions: coupling the concepts with the vocabulary.
That can come later if it's helpful or useful, after the concepts have a
meaning to attach the words to.

~Katherine



On Sat, Jan 22, 2011 at 12:36 PM, Alex <missalexmissalex@...> wrote:

> > Six is still pretty young to be reading or even starting to read. >It has
> become a cultural phenomenon to push the alphabet at kids >really early, but
> knowing the alphabet at 3 doesn't guarantee >reading at 6. Knowing the
> alphabet doesn't necessarily contribute to >learning to read. It can even
> get in the way.
>
> After leaving a short career as a primary teacher, I did a TON of reading
> on reading instruction around the world. The thing that popped out at me the
> most was that the schools--invariably not in the US--that have programs that
> seem like they have the most kids reading in the least time all start with
> the sound instead of the name of the lower case and not the upper case
> letters. The sounds and the lower case letters are what you use the most
> when reading. Heck, I can sound out Hebrew, and I only know the names of
> half the letters, and it doesn't make a bit of difference. So the slew of
> "educational" toys and games on the American market are kind of approaching
> the whole thing backwards! and likely doing a lot to confuse kids. I
> wouldn't say no if my daughter asked for any of it, but I have tried to
> support her interest in letters and sounds with explanations/products/books
> etc that seem to be the least confusing. That sounds like a lot more than we
> really do. :) Basically I mean that though we have lots of nerdy stuff for
> both kids and adults in constant circulation through our house, I've avoided
> the stuff for small kids that are about capital letter names.
>
> Alex N.
>
>
>
> ------------------------------------
>
> Yahoo! Groups Links
>
>
>
>


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