Susan Burgess

My youngest, who is now 11, is not a fluent reader yet. She was in public
school thru 2nd grade, and was labeled dyslexic while she was there. The
reading assignments and homework were a huge stress on her. Even once we
took her out of school, until we started unschooling this past year, we
tried to help her read, although at a much more mellow level, but I wish we
hadn't, it was like we were constantly saying that there is something wrong
with her that we had to fix, which I hate that we did to her. Now, after
being let be this past year, she will occasionally pick up a simple book
that we have read aloud many times, for enjoyment, occasionally asking me
what a word or a few words say. Most things, on the computer or tv, we just
read for her. But, just yesterday, she went in for an annual eye exam, and
and doc was of course asking her about reading, Holly told her that it
stressed her out so she didn't do it much. The doc did find that she needed
reading glasses and also recommended Vision Therapy for her. Has anyone gone
thru that? The last thing I want to do is to get her more help to fix her
"problem". But, as I was looking into it a bit on the computer yesterday, it
showed a picture of how some people with vision problems see words, it
showed one with the words and sentences chopped up into small pieces and she
said "yea, that's kind of what I see". I am torn about this. I want to
continue giving her the space to come to reading at her own pace, and I
deeply do not want to make her again feel that there is something wrong with
her. But, would I also doing her a disservice by ignoring vision problems
that could be causing problems for her? When we briefly talked about it
after the doc, she did not want the therapy at all. I think she had visions
of more people trying to force her to learn what she didn't want to learn,
her self-confidence suffered so much earlier dealing with all this, I don't
want to screw up what she's been gaining with the unschooling and letting
her be.

On Thu, Aug 6, 2009 at 5:55 AM, Meredith <meredith@...> wrote:

>
>
> --- In [email protected]<unschoolingbasics%40yahoogroups.com>,
> "Betj" <bkind28@...> wrote:
> >
> > My son and I both test "gifted" and struggled to read. It wasn't concrete
> like numbers, we could touch 3 and 3 and get 6. We didn't seem to take well
> to the stillness that went with reading. I think for very active children
> hands on is easier and reading isn't the most hands on but it does come when
> something piques their interest.
> ************************
>
> When Mo was younger she enjoyed stencils of all kinds - shapes and letters
> and numbers. She also loved those big rubber mat squares and would separate
> the letters from the background and use them to build words or use them as
> giant stencils. That was fun for her.
>
> Its good to look for resources that line up well with kids' dispositions
> and learning styles - but its also good not to hang expectations on those
> tools "leading" to reading in some obvious, direct manner.
>
> ---Meredith (Mo 7, Ray 15)
>
>
>


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

Meredith

--- In [email protected], Susan Burgess <susands@...> wrote:
>But, would I also doing her a disservice by ignoring vision problems
> that could be causing problems for her?

Do what you can to find this out on a purely medical level - if she receives no help, will her Vision get worse? Don't worry about reading. That's not going to be hurt by waiting, but it may be set back by more intervention. If the problem *is* degenerative, look into what the therapy actually is - it may be something yall can do at home, or that she can do, herself, more casually. Don't rush into anything! Give her time to consider the various options *and* more time to deschool.

---Meredith (Mo 7, Ray 15)