whisperingoaks2

My favorite quote from John Holt is: "If we tried to teach kids to talk, they would never
learn."

With that in mind, here are some thoughts on reading/writing with little children from my
own exprience. Let me know if this is helpful.

When my son was little, my husband and I looked at books with him and read to and with
him from the time he had any interest (pre-toddler) until he lost interest (about age 5 or 6)
in doing this together. We had no tv, and our favorite thing was the 3 of us cuddling up
together and reading children's books together. We always had a stack from the library,
and I was very choosy in picking them out. I figured that if I loved the book, our son
would love it too, and if it looked boring to me, it would not attract him either. I looked
for illustrations that charmed me and I loved text that had dialog and sounds, or had a
rhythm and a beat. There were a few books that illustrated songs, which we sang to him,
as well as other songs. Mother Goose books seemed to have a special attraction, with
their short poetry and catchy rhythm and rhyme, as well as sharing part of our heritage.
We did this only when our son wanted to, which he usually did. This was a very close,
special and loving time we all three had together and we did it 'most every day and
spontaneously whenever we could.

(If you have your own Mother Goose, or any beautiful book with short rhymes, or
charming short stories, which you often read --or sing--together, then when the child is
interested in looking at the words, he will already know what the words are, which will
help him later decipher the "reading code". The rhyming aspect is a special attraction to
listening to and remembering the words.)

And I don't remember exactly what we did with alphabet books, but I have had these
thoughts about them since: That a beautifully illustrated alphabet book of some kind is a
treasure to have in one's own library. (I was browsing through our local megabookstore
recently and had difficulty finding either a good Mother Goose or a good alphabet book.)
I think it is best if an alphabet book includes lower case letters, as the recognition of and
sound of the lower case letters is much more helpful than the name of capital letters.
(That is, I think it's a general principle to give the child the most useful information first. )
For example, instead of focusing on "D" and saying "dee", you could focus on "d" and say
"duh" to identify that symbol. (Keep the "uh" short, as it's not really part of "d".) This is
not "teaching reading", but it's identifying symbols just like you would identify a cow or a
chair. And this does have an advantage in that the child has a leg up when he is ready to
"read".

Also, if the child is sounding out words, it might be helpful for the adult to know to
verbalize, if it comes up, that besides regular "sound out" words, there are sit-together
letters that make one sound (like "sh"), and there are puzzle words that are impossible to
sound out. (Readers know this but some might not have thought about it or how to say
it to a child.) I don't even know when our son "learned to read", as we had no concern
about it and we just shared things about words whenever it came up. (However, he did
read early, which I think is an advantage because reading is such fun and it builds
confidence.) I guess what I'm trying to say is that learning to read is not really an event--
it's a gestation process over years that starts in infancy with speech and progresses
through the little child's intense desire to explore everything and know what everything is,
including what those little squiggles are on signs and notes and computers and tv and
everywhere in our environment that relate to speech.

Also, if your family is writing notes to each other and writing in other ways, the little child
is likely to "write" too, as they pick up whatever is in their environment. A lot of you are
probably writing a daily journal of activities (which is one way to meet homeschooling
requirements in my state). Also, I find writing a note is a great way to get out feelings
when there is anger or frustration between people. In a note, you can say all you want to
say without being interrupted, and it gives people a space between in which to calm down
and reflect. And about writing, a huge mistake most schools make is to make the child
correct spelling which quickly shuts down any desire for the child to write. This is
equivalent to saying, "Don't talk until you can say the words correctly", which would make
a child mute fast. My experience is that spelling mainly corrects itself over time and
experience, but it can always be addressed specifically at some later point if desired. But,
as I see it, speaking, writing and reading are all different aspects of the same bag which
the little child tends to naturally absorb together from the environment--whatever is
happening a lot all around him over a long period of time.

Linda