Karin

> By experience with boys has been different, the unschooled boys we know
> have generally started reading fluently around 10, but there's been a lot
> more variation.
>
> I'd like to hear others' experiences.
>
> Dar


My oldest son (11) started reading pretty well at age 7-8. I started with
the book Teach Your Child to Read in 100 easy lessons when he was about 5.
He caught on to the whole phonics thing, and seemed to have little trouble
reading, started with easy readers and worked up to chapter books. He's not
a voracious reader, though, but has tackled a thick book if he has a real
interest.

My younger son (9) started reading instruction in much the same way and at
the same age (around 5). But things were so different with him. We also used
the same 100 easy lessons book, but only made it about 10-20 lessons in and
were having incredible difficulties and frustrations. He really wanted to
learn, especially because his older brother could read and learned from the
same book. But the book didn't "click" with him like it had with his
brother. He wasn't getting phonics AT ALL. Being the good homeschooling mom
I was ;-), I bought a good, age appropriate phonics workbook to help him
learn the concepts of sounding out words. Oh, how he struggled to do each
and every page of that book, and I just didn't understand why he wasn't
getting it. I devised other phonics word games, used index cards to label
things around the house, and had him read aloud to me. He and I both were so
frustrated, and I even thought he was purposely being
stubborn and willfull by NOT "getting" phonics and reading. W even got the
Phonics game (a gift from my mom) and as you can guess, it did NO good at
all, in fact it was a big joke IMO, especially after seeing those
commercials again.

Last year in Sept. I started unschooling and stopped doing all reading
instruction, workbooks and the like. I left him completely alone and since
then, in this past year, he has made such progress in learning to read on
his own. Reading is coming to him, slowly but surely, and I think the thing
that helped most was me taking the pressure off of him and accepting him
just as he is, and knowing that he is at the level that *he* is supposed to
be at right now.
All thanks to unschooling. :-)

My husband says that he remembers being exactly the same way in school
(having difficulty reading) when he was little. In fact, that difficulty
carried right on through all his school years, and even to this day. My dh
says he can't read a book for pleasure, like a fiction book. He says that if
he reads a chapter and puts the book down, the next time he picks it up he
forgot the story so far and has to reread the chapter he already read. He
only reads computer technical manuals to help himself learn specific things,
but never reads for enjoyment. He attributes this reading handicap to being
left-handed, and says it's the same way with my younger son, who is also
left-handed. We know other kids who have reading/learning difficulties and
most if not all just happen to be left-handed and it goes along with his
theory - that left-handed people have a harder time learning things in
general, at least in "normal" ways. Well, I don't know if that's true or not
and I tell him it's not fair to generalize and stereotype people that way.
But that's his opinion.

Karin

[email protected]

**He attributes this reading handicap to being left-handed, and says it's the
same way with my younger son, who is also left-handed. We know other kids who
have reading/learning difficulties and most if not all just happen to be
left-handed and it goes along with his theory - that left-handed people have
a harder time learning things in general, at least in "normal" ways.**

My earliest reader is a leftie. Writes leftie, anyway. Bats right, throws
right, cuts left, writes left, eats left - until he was 4 or so he was a two
fisted eater, spoon in one hand, fork in the other. <g> Not that he's a
"normal" learner.

Sarah, who had the most trouble learning to read, is my most strongly right
handed child.

Your husband may be right that there's a tendency for left handed people to
have more trouble reading, just like in general girls read earlier and easier
than boys, BUT that doesn't tell you what's going to happen with any one
individual child. :::shrug::::

Deborah in IL

Tia Leschke

>
>My earliest reader is a leftie. Writes leftie, anyway. Bats right, throws
>right, cuts left, writes left, eats left - until he was 4 or so he was a two
>fisted eater, spoon in one hand, fork in the other. <g> Not that he's a
>"normal" learner.

Mine is the same, eats and writes left, throws and bats right. A much
later reader.
Tia

No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.
Eleanor Roosevelt
*********************************************
Tia Leschke
leschke@...
On Vancouver Island

Lewis

Regarding handedness:

Our youngest uses both hands equally. He eats meals with a fork in one hand
and a spoon in one hand, which does not bother me, but it drives my mother
nuts, because I am not teaching him how to eat, whatever.

Anyway, I used to think, cool, he is ambidextrous (sp??). But no, we had
him evaluated by a Occupational therapist when he was 3, when we found out
he had delays in his fine motor skills. The part about using both of his
hands was fascinating.

It seems he was "not crossing midline". Meaning, anything on his left hand
side he would use his left hand for, and anything on his right side he
would just use his right hand for. This is not ambidextrous. Ambidextrous
(and I am sure I am completely screwing up the spelling, sorry), is when you
lets say eat with your left (always), and throw a ball with your right
(always), etc...

In my son's case, it has a large part to do with his brain, he has extremely
poor vision, and a crossed eye, which is also a brain condition, and not an
eye condition.

Just interesting.

Debbie

[email protected]

My fourteen-year-old writes/eats right-handed, but kicks left-footed (so does
his dad). Makes for a sure position of left wing on the soccer field! <g>
Bats and throws righty, though.

Cameron performed magic for several years and had to learn many tricks with
both hands. It took a little longer with the left hand, but he said that it
was just a matter of concentrating really hard---that the KNOWLEDGE of how to
do the trick was in his head, but that he had to really THINK hard to send
the message down to this left fingers. After he was "sure" that the fingers
could get the message, he knew that he could do the trick with either
hand---without thinking at all.

>>>It seems he was "not crossing midline". Meaning, anything on his left
hand
side he would use his left hand for, and anything on his right side he
would just use his right hand for.<<<

I put mascara on the right eye with the right hand and the left eye with the
left hand. It used to get a laugh in college. My friends would turn their
right arms kind of upside down and backwards to get the left eyes. I also
paint and draw equally well with the left hand, although I'm a righty. I'll
have to look up "crossing over". In baseball, I have to catch with my right
and throw with my right (after tossing off the glove!)---needless to say, I
was never picked for base/softball teams! <G>

>>>This is not ambidextrous. Ambidextrous
(and I am sure I am completely screwing up the spelling, sorry), is when you
lets say eat with your left (always), and throw a ball with your right
(always), etc...<<<

I thought ambidextrous meant EQUALLY comfortable with EITHER right or left
hand---ambi (on both sides) + dexter (right)

>>Anyway, I used to think, cool, he is ambidextrous (sp??). But no, we had
him evaluated by a Occupational therapist when he was 3, when we found out
he had delays in his fine motor skills.<<<

I thought that most two-to-four-year-olds often use both hands. Mine did. And
there were no "delays" in their fine motor skills

>>>The part about using both of his hands was fascinating.<<<

Handedness IS fascinating! I have a friend whose twin boys are mirror images
of each other--major cool!

Kelly







>
>



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

[email protected]

i do almost everything with my left hand except write. i can write with
either and always hold my pens as if i were left handed. my grandmother
swears that it is my mom's fault because she would always take things out of
my left and put them in my right. do you think this could be? i've always
wondered. do you think its a motor skill thing like your son?
tina


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

Alan & Brenda Leonard

> For example, my just-starting-to-read son would like to read the words on his
> gameboy advance screen himself and not have to look for someone else to read
> it to him.

Reading his gameboy was my son's definition of when he could read. Not when
he read Sleepy Dog, a very stupid (but much beloved) beginning reader that
my Mom sent which was his first book, or any of those easy books. I think
that while I'll always remember him reading his first book (we were on day 3
of 3 days of movers, moving to Germany, living in a hotel, in the midst of
chaos...how could I forget!), Tim "really reading" took a lot longer than
that first book, of course.

I never answer the question when people ask me when he started to read. I
just tell them one of our many great learning-to-read stories, and they
usually go away happy anyway!

brenda

[email protected]

Looked up more info and reading John Holt's "Learning All the Time" and
thinking non-phonetic is best for my daughter. Wondering if any of you would
mind sharing with me about your child learning to read through exposure to
literature and other possible non-phonetic methods (like games...but the
games do seem to be phonetically oriented since reading is not presented in
context...video games, too). Maybe my question here, as well, is does
phonetic oriented exposure complicate or enhance or can go either
waydepending on the child? I am not always able to present myself
clearly...especiallly when I am in the midst of a ponder...hope I am making
sense!

Thanks,
Robin


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

Mary Bianco

>From: robin9700@...

<<Maybe my question here, as well, is does phonetic oriented exposure
complicate or enhance or can go either way depending on the child? I am not
always able to present myself clearly...especiallly when I am in the midst
of a ponder...hope I am making sense!>>


My first learned to read at school. My two next children who are now very
soon to be 7 and 8 learned here on their own. I had a reading program from
my first daughter that I had bought. Phonics stuff and games and the sort. I
saved some of the books and tapes. My next two would want to listen to the
tapes and look at the books. That's how they learned phonics. They also were
into workbooks like a year or two ago. I found a site on the internet where
I printed out worksheets for them where they would have to insert the
correct letter for a picture. It started out with beginning letters, then
the end and eventually middle and also blends. My kids must have went
through at least 50 worksheets each. Then they just put them all away and
literally walked away from the "reading." About 4 months ago, they both just
started to read small words and now read quite well. My husband who is a
strong supporter of unschooling is amazed everytime he hears them reading.
Mostly because he never has seen me sit and teach them. The one that really
is astonished is my almost 17 year old. She thinks all we do all day is
play! <BEG>

Mary B


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[email protected]

In a message dated 12/9/2002 12:20:58 PM Eastern Standard Time,
mummyone24@... writes:
> My first learned to read at school. My two next children who are now very
> soon to be 7 and 8 learned here on their own. I had a reading program from
> my first daughter that I had bought. Phonics stuff and games and the sort.
> I
> saved some of the books and tapes. My next two would want to listen to the
> tapes and look at the books. That's how they learned phonics. They also
> were
> into workbooks like a year or two ago. I found a site on the internet where
>
> I printed out worksheets for them where they would have to insert the
> correct letter for a picture. It started out with beginning letters, then
> the end and eventually middle and also blends. My kids must have went
> through at least 50 worksheets each. Then they just put them all away and
> literally walked away from the "reading." About 4 months ago, they both
> just
> started to read small words and now read quite well. My husband who is a
> strong supporter of unschooling is amazed everytime he hears them reading.
> Mostly because he never has seen me sit and teach them. The one that really
>
> is astonished is my almost 17 year old. She thinks all we do all day is
> play! <BEG>
>
> Mary B


Thanks, Mary. Sounds like youir children used the info in their way.....sans
the pressure to perform. My daughter is no way interested in worksheets, so
I've dropped them....for now? I've noticed that she really prefers to make
her own discoveries....figure things out herself. She is my teacher in that
respect...she will not allow me to take over her path and her way. I'm
gathering from the beginnings of my reading of John Holt that he believes
that phonics actually interfers with learning to read...maybe I am wrong in
that assumption. (Not that I am much of a follower of anyone...just I can see
where that could happen, but maybe not always.) Maybe I am wondering just
what to have available for her and how?

THanks, Robin

>
>


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

[email protected]

In a message dated 12/10/2002 8:15:13 AM Eastern Standard Time,
abtleo@... writes:
> I suppose it would depend on how it's presented. But I don't think you can
> avoid having any exposure to phonics whatsover. They're all over the
> place.
>
> I didn't teach my son phonics so he could read. He would ask about the
> sounds letters make when he saw things in print. And when we sat down
> together with easy books, sometimes I'd point out something that might help
> him. For example, he tried to say the silent e's on the ends of words, so
> we talked about how e is quiet but manipulative, because he changes the
> sound of the other letters but doesn't say anything himself. And Tim got
> mad at c, because he's a thief without a sound but steals s or k's sound,
> so
> you never knew which sound he was going to be!
>
> Is that phonics? Of course. But phonetic oriented exposure sounds very
> teachy, and you don't need to teach him to read. He'll read himself when
> he's good and ready.
>
> brenda
>
>

Right. That is my question! Is exposure (talk about, pointing out, games
such as word family matching games, computer games which focus on sounds)
teachy? Does acknowledgement of and focus on the little separate parts of
words impede the learning of reading? I used to teach in a literacy program
for adults and I noticed that most were stumbling and struggling their way
through each word...hung up on each individual sound. Each little sound was
an entity unto itself....Seems like in your situation that you were giving a
boost and explanation for the words that your child needed/wanted an
explanation for....now that I can see making sense (to me) within the
unschooling philosophy.The words come first, then tools as and if needed and
wanted to "clear the path?"

Whittling away at all those teaching reading classes....

Thanks for responding!

Robin


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

[email protected]

In a message dated 12/10/02 9:50:20 AM, robin9700@... writes:

<< That is my question! Is exposure (talk about, pointing out, games
such as word family matching games, computer games which focus on sounds)
teachy?>>

Depends if it's teachy.
Depends on intent, investment and tone of voice.
If the parent is conversational, casual, and can handle a total lack of
kid-interest, then it's not teachy.

<<Does acknowledgement of and focus on the little separate parts of
words impede the learning of reading? >>

Not if the kid has an interest in it and the parent doesn't seem desperate,
in my experience.

My kids liked "Sounds Like Fun" which is a cassette tape with a folder
(cardboard illustration) for a song that goes
Apple, apple, a, a, a
Apple, apple, a, a, a
Baby, baby, buh, buh, buh
Baby, baby, buh, buh, buh

We still sing it sometimes just because it comes up for some reason, or to
try to get through and remember all the 26 examples they had.

And one of Holly's first Adobe Photoshop projects was to scan that really
worn out and taped cardboard visual aid and repair it. We have an extra tape
but didn't have an extra of the 'song,' so someday we'll pass that on.

Sandra

[email protected]

In a message dated 12/10/2002 12:01:36 PM Eastern Standard Time,
SandraDodd@... writes:
> In a message dated 12/10/02 9:50:20 AM, robin9700@... writes:
>
> Robin<< That is my question! Is exposure (talk about, pointing out, games
>
> such as word family matching games, computer games which focus on sounds)
> teachy?>>
>
> Sandra>>Depends if it's teachy.
> Depends on intent, investment and tone of voice.
> If the parent is conversational, casual, and can handle a total lack of
> kid-interest, then it's not teachy.<<

Just wondering if, regardless of tone and intent, pointing out a fact (sound,
in this case) robs a child of the possibility of self-discovery and pure
"ownership" of a know...

Thinking that the point of intervention in a child's own realm of learning
(creating their own knowledgeand connection) should not
be taken lightly...
investment can mean if ever, when and for how long...?

Still whittling,
Robin
>
>
>
>


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

[email protected]

In a message dated 12/10/02 10:36:03 AM, robin9700@... writes:

<< Just wondering if, regardless of tone and intent, pointing out a fact
(sound,
in this case) robs a child of the possibility of self-discovery and pure
"ownership" of a know... >>

Would that go for everything? Patterns in nature? Geography? Bird
watching?
Do you intend to never point out ANYTHING that's interesting? A new tomato
on the vine? The big gross tomato worm? (We finally got one this year, and
Holly had never seen one, but we opted out of keeping it for transformation.
We thought we'd leave it on the vine and watch it. ONE DAY later a whole
plant was eaten up, so we relocated him into a vacant lot, but didn't stay to
see the birds find him.

Anyway...

It's interesting figuring out where our threshholds are on different things.

We've always played rhyming games in the car just for fun, and number games,
and had tapes in to sing along and some of those had "educational content"
and we always managed to enjoy and glean coolness from the most base or vile
or goofy stuff as well.

If a word looks like or sounds like another word, and if the kid is right
there anyway (looking for other words that are a lot like "Holly" and I point
out "jolly") that's not different from "Eeyew! A tomato worm!" or "Look at
the frost patterns on the windshield!" *if* the family is accustomed to
finding happy joy in little discoveries anyway.

Sandra

Julie Stauffer

I think phonics is simply ONE way SOME people learn to read. Other people
use other ways, most people probably use a combination of ways.

Phonics drives my 9yo ds insane. He is very much the kind of kid who gets
an idea in his head and then has trouble if he has to shift gears. Plan A
is Plan A is Plan A, even if it is obvious to even him that it isn't
working. Shifting to Plan B is a long and tedious task. So when "come" is
pronounced "cum" and "home is pronounced "hoam" it drive him nuts and he
completely quit working on reading.

He does much better simply recognizing the shapes of words. He is now
reading lots of signs, candy wrappers, television listings....nothing that
even remotely resembles a book I think because me pushing phonics on him
years ago really freaked him out.

Julie

Liza Sabater

I think that English is way harder to learn ---if you are going to
rely on phonics alone. I taught Spanish to college students for 7
years and what I found most interesting of the process was that, the
American students who were never exposed to a second language would
end the semester or the year having to re-learn English. They lacked
the tools for making those leaps from their language to a new one.
The leaps that would help them in making connections with the new
language and, hopefully, ground them in the new vocabulary and new
way of thinking.

It was during my stint at NYU and Rutgers that came as a shock to me
that schools spend little if not no time dealing with English from an
orthographical, syntactical or etymological point of view. It's like
there are these words you have to learn how to use, for better or
worse, in a way that remains magical and mysterious. There is no
sense that words are these plastic things that you can actually build
and use as raw material for building worlds. There is no sense that
words have their own biographies; their own histories. That you can
learn about a country or a culture by the way that they use a word.

Words can be an exciting and fascinating world unto themselves.

Liza




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

kayb85 <[email protected]>

I was looking at the game Rummy Roots, to teach the roots of words.
Is it a fun, worthwhile game?
Sheila

> It was during my stint at NYU and Rutgers that came as a shock to
me
> that schools spend little if not no time dealing with English from
an
> orthographical, syntactical or etymological point of view. It's
like
> there are these words you have to learn how to use, for better or
> worse, in a way that remains magical and mysterious. There is no
> sense that words are these plastic things that you can actually
build
> and use as raw material for building worlds. There is no sense that
> words have their own biographies; their own histories. That you can
> learn about a country or a culture by the way that they use a word.
>
> Words can be an exciting and fascinating world unto themselves.
>
> Liza
>
>
>
>
> [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Liza Sabater

>I was looking at the game Rummy Roots, to teach the roots of words.
>Is it a fun, worthwhile game?
>Sheila

I've never heard about it. What is it?

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

[email protected]

In a message dated 12/10/2002 12:59:07 PM Eastern Standard Time,
jnjstau@... writes:
> I think phonics is simply ONE way SOME people learn to read. Other people
> use other ways, most people probably use a combination of ways.
>
> Phonics drives my 9yo ds insane. He is very much the kind of kid who gets
> an idea in his head and then has trouble if he has to shift gears. Plan A
> is Plan A is Plan A, even if it is obvious to even him that it isn't
> working. Shifting to Plan B is a long and tedious task. So when "come" is
> pronounced "cum" and "home is pronounced "hoam" it drive him nuts and he
> completely quit working on reading.<<


Yeah. Shifting gears is hard for a lot of people (like me!). May be "stuff"
has to fall in place (in its own time)in the brain before a shift can take
place(readiness?)....and then the shift may not be to Plan B. I think this
is where the trust and letting go comes in and that's hard to do when one is
concerned for their child and not feeling secure about it all. I'm reading
John Holt's "Learning All the TIme," and he talks abouit how nutty phonics
can be...now I have develped phonic phobia!



Still shifting, unlearning, relearning...whatever....!

Untangling?
> RObin
>
>
>


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

Jon and Rue Kream

Rowan (who's 7) and I are watching TV. The HOP commercial came on and
we started talking about the promises they make and whether anyone
really needs HOP. She said, "As long as you're unschooling your mind's
bubbling up with how to spell and how to read." :0) ~Rue


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

pam sorooshian

<http://www.fci.org/newsletter/readfocus.asp?ID=4&newsletterid=4>

Mr. Rogers Neighborhood newsletter with a wonderful sweet article on
learning to read.

-pam
National Home Education Network
<www.NHEN.org>
Serving the entire homeschooling community since 1999
through information, networking and public relations.