Re: Unschooling/late readers
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**Also it may be that those with early readers don't have the same need for
support or the ability to provide it with personal stories.**
:) Probably a very good guess. Sometimes people get annoyed at discussions of
early readers or precocious math ability.
So hey, I'll add a few more real live unschooled kids to the anecdotal
"statistics" pile here. I have three totally unschooled kids (never schooled
for a single day in their lives). 1 girl and the boy were reading fluently on
the early side of average. The girl read avidly for pleasure from then on,
the boy is rarely interested in fiction and only reads for information needs
not the pleasure of the hunt though he reads very well. The other girl was a
big surprise, she used sophisticated language at an early age but had a great
deal of trouble learning to read despite her earnest efforts. She wanted to
read early more than any of my children but ended up a late reader anyway,
still struggling with it. She has definite discernable differences in the way
she perceives the world and the printed page.
The most interesting thing about her story is that she mostly never thought
of herself as a nonreader or slow reader. All those years when she wasn't
being remediated or prodded by anyone but herself, she could sit on the couch
taking an hour to read a five sentence paragraph, and know she was a reader.
Except for the months when she was five that I HID the early readers and
phonics materials from her and helped her twin with reading only when she
wasn't around. But that's another story. :) No, really it's the same story.
She was at the time INSISTING on learning to read, insisting on trying over
and over and over until she was crying in frustration and I felt like joining
her. She wasn't ready. In spite of her sophisticated vocabulary she didn't
understand rhymes (so phonics made no sense to her) and couldn't see the
differences in words.
It helped some. She still tried to read and failed but she wasn't so
frustrated because she knew she was trying to work with REALLY HARD STUFF so
it was okay in her head for her to be messing up.
Well, see, I guess I just supported my point. The late reading stories are
usually more interesting, so that's what folks hear. :)
Deborah in IL
support or the ability to provide it with personal stories.**
:) Probably a very good guess. Sometimes people get annoyed at discussions of
early readers or precocious math ability.
So hey, I'll add a few more real live unschooled kids to the anecdotal
"statistics" pile here. I have three totally unschooled kids (never schooled
for a single day in their lives). 1 girl and the boy were reading fluently on
the early side of average. The girl read avidly for pleasure from then on,
the boy is rarely interested in fiction and only reads for information needs
not the pleasure of the hunt though he reads very well. The other girl was a
big surprise, she used sophisticated language at an early age but had a great
deal of trouble learning to read despite her earnest efforts. She wanted to
read early more than any of my children but ended up a late reader anyway,
still struggling with it. She has definite discernable differences in the way
she perceives the world and the printed page.
The most interesting thing about her story is that she mostly never thought
of herself as a nonreader or slow reader. All those years when she wasn't
being remediated or prodded by anyone but herself, she could sit on the couch
taking an hour to read a five sentence paragraph, and know she was a reader.
Except for the months when she was five that I HID the early readers and
phonics materials from her and helped her twin with reading only when she
wasn't around. But that's another story. :) No, really it's the same story.
She was at the time INSISTING on learning to read, insisting on trying over
and over and over until she was crying in frustration and I felt like joining
her. She wasn't ready. In spite of her sophisticated vocabulary she didn't
understand rhymes (so phonics made no sense to her) and couldn't see the
differences in words.
It helped some. She still tried to read and failed but she wasn't so
frustrated because she knew she was trying to work with REALLY HARD STUFF so
it was okay in her head for her to be messing up.
Well, see, I guess I just supported my point. The late reading stories are
usually more interesting, so that's what folks hear. :)
Deborah in IL