[email protected]

**My kids didn't want to "READ," they wanted to read specific things.**

Perhaps most kids do. But not all. 3 out of 4 of my kids were as you describe
here, learning to read at various ages because they found it a useful skill,
because there were things they wanted to read.

The 4th though, the one whose learning to read I've previously described
here, wanted to "READ". She didn't have anything in particular in mind, no
particular book she wanted to read or information she wanted to have - she
knew how to get those by utilizing adult readers. She desparately wanted to
read for herself. I'd have been content for her to wait much longer and be a
"late" reader, but she wasn't. It wouldn't have been respectful of me to say
to her "sorry, you'll just have to wait" without trying to support her
learning when that was what she wanted. To my mind, that's as important a
function of an unschooling parent as sheilding them from the expectations of
outsiders.

Maybe it's comparable to learning to ride a bike. Some kids want to ride
because they have somewhere they want to go. Some want to ride because it
looks like fun. And some want to ride because they see it as a grown up skill.

Often kids look at grown up skill stuff and they play at it. They play act
going to work, taking care of children, driving the car. They do the shopping
and run the train and man the phone lines and generally mess around with
trying on the world for size.

Sarah wanted the grown up skill. She didn't want to wait to grow into it, and
even while she played at having it and using it she tried desparately to get
it, to own it, to claim it for herself. She wasn't going to wait to get
older, especially not while her twin was barrelling along reading everything
he laid his eyes on, seemingly effortlessly from her point of view. It really
wasn't FAIR! :)

She asked for help. I did my best.

**Perhaps I see Bob Books as little walking-chair-substitutes made just for
that purpose and no other. A special color, a special size, to stash around
the room so kids can walk. And it seems families can just use chairs they
already have.**

For most kids, most times, special walking chair substitutes aren't necessary
at all, and while they might come in handy for a short time, they'd mostly be
a waste of space and money. But some kids DO need extra help, and for them
those substitutes might be the difference between a painful struggle toward
success and an agonizing failure.

Sarah saw the BOB books at the public library and asked for her own. So we
bought them. The fact that they're absolutely positively simple, uncluttered,
not about much of anything was just what she wanted. She could concentrate on
just trying to match sounds to letter code. Real books were frustrating for
that purpose - she would want to understand the story/information and lose
focus.

She didn't learn to read with the BOB books, but they helped her feel she was
reading when it was important to her to feel that.

She'd have been labeled and remediated and turned into a nonreader in
schools, but here we just supported her as best we could and gave her lessons
when she asked, held her when she was frustrated, and tried to give her
"child size tools" when they seemed indicated.

None of which is to say that I'd generally "recommend" BOB widely, but I
certainly tell folks that they might want to look at them if they've got a
frustrated reader.

Deborah in IL