reading

Zoo Boy is reading. This is somewhat new, although not entirely unexpected. He's been working on spelling out words he sees for months on and off. He's been verbally playing around with letter sounds. He's stopped asking what words say when he sees them, I think because he now KNOWS what they say. Prior to a month or so ago "what does that word say?" was a common question.

The realization came on Friday, when he "read" a book to one of our homeschooling friends who was here for a playdate. I wasn't paying a whole lot of attention, watching the other kids play as Zoo Boy worked his way through a familiar book. About mid-way into it, my friend said "He's really doing well with his reading!" I was about to tell her that he's just got the book memorized, but I hesitated and watched what he was actually doing. He was pointing to each word as he said it, readily stating the words he knew by sight, sounding out the shorter ones, looking to her for help with the longer ones. When she gave him the first sound, most times he was able to sound out the rest of the word. This was not recitation, he was actually reading the book. Hm! I thought. Wonder how long this has been going on....

That night, I told The Map Man that Zoo Boy was reading. He scoffed and declared that it's just memorization. No, I told him, I'm certain that he's reading, and explained the scenario. He skeptically smiled and didn't mention it again. Until the next day. We were watching football, he went out into the kitchen for a few minutes, and when he returned he said "You're right, Zoo Boy is reading." I looked questioningly at him, and he told me that at that moment, Zoo Boy was in the living room playing with a puzzle card game where you match 3 pictures and letters to make words -- only he was rearranging the cards to make unique words.

There's been a lot of discussion lately on the Enki support list about reading, how to help kids learn, when it's appropriate, how much support to provide. For the most part I've completely ignored the thread. It's not that I don't find it interesting, I just feel that I have absolutely nothing to add to a discussion on it. Our kids have learned to read entirely on their own -- what do *I* know about learning to read?

What I do find puzzling is where this early reading comes from. Neither The Map Man nor I were early readers. Sure, we learned right along with the rest of our first grade classes how to read via Dick and Jane (See spot run!). Like my kids, I've always adored books and wanted to be read to constantly. But I can remember the day I came home with my first reader, absolutely thrilled that I could finally read a book on my own -- that the teacher taught me how to read! (In retrospect, I can see that as the point in my life where I was convinced that I had to be taught how to do things, that I couldn't learn things on my own. What a lesson to teach a kid....) My kids don't have that same level of being thrilled to know how to read. They were each thoroughly convinced they would do it, the thought that they couldn't never entered their minds. To them, there is nothing amazing about it. It just is. They possess the inherent wisdom to know that they WILL learn. They don't need to be taught a thing.

I read on one holistic blogger's site that she would be considered a Holistic Education failure because her daughter is an early reader. And the perception is partially true -- many children raised and educated holistically don't learn to read until they are 7 or 8 years old, some even older, because that is when most kids are naturally ready to read. But to call early reading a failure is one of the silliest things I've ever heard. I agree that actively TEACHING a child to read before they are ready for it is wrong. (I also believe that some children have obstacles that will need to be overcome in order for them to read -- dyslexia is only one example -- and in those cases it IS up to the educator to help facilitate learning to read. Not at age 4 or 5, though.) But to discourage a child from learning to read at a time when she is naturally ready for it is every bit as big a failing as "teaching" them to read before they are ready for it.

Giving our children the space to learn at their own pace, when they are developmentally ready for it, is the responsibility we take on when we make the decision to facilitate our children's education. Other than the unconditional love of a parent, it's the greatest gift we'll ever give them.