Nance Confer

unschoolingbasicsDid you ask her about it? Was it a joke? Sometimes cartoons do this. Did she know she was doing it?

Nance


The letters were all facing the right
>way, but the entire word was written from right to left...Should I
>be concerned?


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melissa_hice

No, I did not bring it up to her because she is so fearful of reading
and writing. She is afraid of messing up so she pretty much refuses to
write anything. I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that I caused much of
this fear due to my insistance that she begin reading instruction at an
early age - I used to teach first grade and this was all way before I
knew anything about unschooling. I think I kind of messed it up for
her.

It has taken almost a year now (I learned about unschooling this past
fall) for her to feel okay enough to write a few words here and there
and to "read" books on her own - mostly looking at pictures and a few
words of books I have read aloud to her that she found interesting.
So, no, I did not ask her about it. I thought it best to just leave it
alone at that point.

Melissa
--- In [email protected], "Nance Confer"
<marbleface@...> wrote:
>
> unschoolingbasicsDid you ask her about it? Was it a joke? Sometimes
cartoons do this. Did she know she was doing it?
>
> Nance
>
>
> The letters were all facing the right
> >way, but the entire word was written from right to left...Should I
> >be concerned?
>
>
> [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
>

Ren Allen

~~The
letters were all facing the right way, but the entire word was written
from right to left. She tends to make some of her letters backwards,
like the G in her name, but because she doesn't write unknown words
very often, it kind of threw me for a loop when she did this.~~

I have children who did this! Some of mine just reversed certain
letters, but one of them (can't even remember who it was now) reversed
entire words. Even to the point of a mirror image. It's normal as far
as I can tell.

I remember when Trevor was young and reversing letters and I thought
"ooh, I wonder if he's dyslexic?" but I was reading Raymond and
Dorothy Moore's work and figured it wouldn't hurt to worry about it
later. Good thing too. Because it resolved itself.

By the time Jared and Sierra were doing it, I had read a lot about
"dyslexia" and how overdiagnosed it is, plus I had the experience of
watching it work itself out even in older children. So I didn't worry
and every one of them figured it out eventually.

I think it's part of the normal process for a lot of people.:)
If they DO have trouble sequencing and reversing? I think they'll
probably figure out their own tools and tricks better than if someone
messes with their process.

Ren
learninginfreedom.com

Kelly Nishan

I was reading a book about the Sudury Valley School which is a
democratic free school in Ma. One of the things that interested me
was they have never had a student that was dyslexic. They didn't make
any scientific claims because it's not a scientific study. But it is
interesting that despite 10% of the population having dyslexia not a
single child there has not become a competent reader in their own
time. Sometime between 4 and 12 they all did learn to read and
write.

In my experience with my daughter she never did anything until she was
a master of it. There was no external learning "process" she either
could or could not. But then once she could she totally could. It
was that way with using the toilet, walking, reading, everything. So
now I never worry about what she should know or be able to do at 15.
When she decides she is ready she will do it and there is not a
blessed thing I can do about it. The best thing I can do for her and
our relationship together is not take it personally and not worry
about what other people think. Of course I don't always do that but I
try : )
Kelly

Ren Allen

~~I think I kind of messed it up for
her.~~

I sympathize.:)
I messed up a lot of the joy for Trevor too. Makes me sad, BUT he not
only writes very accurately now when he needs to, he even started
BLOGGING! At 18...OMG. I didn't entirely kill the desire, it just took
a long time to come back. It was around 13 that he stopped being hung
up about reading/writing and it's only now that I think he's finding
joy in it.

Ren
learninginfreedom.om

Judy R

Thanks Randy, I'm going to get stuff up on my website today - I am still waiting on the school board to OK our flyers, but I will put it on there as well - do you have a week in mind for the summer camps (check www.inveraryplayhouse.org for schedule)? We have decided that we will run you guys' camps simultaneously with what we already have planned - apparently Carrie Whalen (www.YAKingston.com) who we were talking about yesterday does this all the time, so it shouldn't be a problem. Cheers! Judy R
----- Original Message -----
From: Ren Allen
To: [email protected]
Sent: Thursday, June 05, 2008 10:23 AM
Subject: [unschoolingbasics] Re: Should I be concerned?


~~I think I kind of messed it up for
her.~~

I sympathize.:)
I messed up a lot of the joy for Trevor too. Makes me sad, BUT he not
only writes very accurately now when he needs to, he even started
BLOGGING! At 18...OMG. I didn't entirely kill the desire, it just took
a long time to come back. It was around 13 that he stopped being hung
up about reading/writing and it's only now that I think he's finding
joy in it.

Ren
learninginfreedom.om





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Zoa Conner

Glad Trevor has found joy. I made it to 20 before I had a single person tell
me that my writing was not horrid. I don¹t mean handwriting ­ I mean
composition. I got branded as a math/science person in school and my
english teachers would always tell me ³you¹re good at math/science not
in language arts². It took a junior year college technical writing teacher
to
tell me that I was a good writer. Since then I have gradually found joy in
writing ­ when I find a need to write. I still don¹t do poetry or creative
writing basically at all.

Zoa

On 6/5/08 10:23 AM, "Ren Allen" <starsuncloud@...> wrote:
> I sympathize.:)
> I messed up a lot of the joy for Trevor too. Makes me sad, BUT he not
> only writes very accurately now when he needs to, he even started
> BLOGGING! At 18...OMG. I didn't entirely kill the desire, it just took
> a long time to come back. It was around 13 that he stopped being hung
> up about reading/writing and it's only now that I think he's finding
> joy in it.
>
> Ren
> learninginfreedom.om
----------------
Zoa Conner, PhD
Physicist and Organic Learning Mother
zoaconner@...



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Matt & Jessica

So far (my dd is only ALMOST 5, her birthday is 2 wks from today!!!) we have had the same experience. When she is ready she seems to do things FULL force.




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