Learning to Read

Reading is such an important marker of education for most people that we tend to imbue it with other value, as well. Early readers are considered bright and intelligent, whereas late readers are looked upon with some concern. And what we mean by "early" and "late" changes all the time. I remember a friend telling me that her extremely bright and verbal child was behind because she couldn't read upon entering kindergarten. Kindergarten, the first entry to formal education! This was not some academically elite private academy, but a regular public school.

With unschooling there are no deadlines for learning something, so children begin reading independently at all different ages. The stories of how unschoolers begin to read are always interesting to me. One friend's child started reading due his interest in cars and car magazines—he wanted to read what was written under the photos he liked. Another friend's daughter became frustrated that her mom wasn't reading Harry Potter fast enough. My older son began reading around age 7 and like many "late" readers, he never went through a stage of having to painfully sound out each word but was immediately fluent. One week he was not reading, and the next he was reading the Oz books.

My younger son began reading through writing. From a young age, he would leave us "notes" that had series of tiny loops on them, all between the lines and filling the page.

One morning when we were on vacation, he decided to leave a note to his sleeping brother telling him we were going to breakfast. The spelling was a little funky, but the note was intelligible. A few months later, he also began to read. He was 9.

Is there really such a thing as a 'late' reader? I suppose if you are in school and are not able to read at the predetermined timetable and keep up with your same aged peers, then yes, you will be considered a late reader. And then begins the defining moments in a child's life where this label now becomes his inner voice. But with unschoolers, perhaps there is no such thing as late.

One of the things I love most about unschooling is there are no timelines to meet academic milestones. Each of my kids is free to develop skills when they are ready and when there is a want for that skill. Having said that, it still doesn't stop me from having my own anxieties about what my kids can do academically compared to their schooled peers. I call it comparativitis. Some days I suffer from it quite deeply. Some say my worries are only because I haven't completely de-schooled myself yet.

My first child started to read at age 3. He got it. He just seemed to 'crack the code'. In those early years he wanted to be read to all the time from fact books. He needed to know everything he could about bugs, dinosaurs and cars. Every fact possible, even the Latin names. He was the child that at age 4 picked up the book Go, Dog, Go! and read it cover to cover to me while I had a shower. It's 72 pages long and geared towards grades 1 and 2.

Because it was obviously his passion and he was doing what most kids do about interests, he was obsessing about words! Filing them away in his mental sorting system. He would just simply read words. If he didn't know a word, we would just tell him it and he would never forget it. He wasn't a phonics reader, he didn't sound words out, I think he simply just 'cracked the code.'

Having this experience was great for me as a first time parent and first time home educator. This is easy! I thought. I didn't have to 'teach' him, I just had to facilitate and bring to him everything he needed. Fitting perfectly with our unschool philosophy of education.

Along comes child number two. We couldn't have been given two different kids. Academically, they are very different. Artistically, they are very different. Their personalities are very different as well. All these differences should be there, because they are different people. This begs the question; why are academics valued over other non academic skills? There are so many ways to be 'smart'. Will it matter when they're older who started to read earlier? Are they just who they are? It might be time for me to look at what my kids can do instead of what they can't?

It's hard for me not to want to sit down and 'teach' her how to read. I want to, and I try, because of my own insecurities. But she has a different agenda! She will not tolerate being taught. She's onto me and what I'm trying to do and it doesn't feel right to her. She will read when she's ready to read!

That's so interesting that your son read at age 3. Because of my own children's experiences, I had started to assume that the natural age of reading readiness was in that 8-10 age ballpark. I guess it's just like everything else: each child is truly different.

I can also relate to your trying to teach your daughter reading. I also did that with C, my older, with the same response! With S, I knew that reading would come and was able to leave him alone about it. That reminds me, though, that around that period we were interviewed by a local newspaper about unschooling. I talked with the reporter for hours, but the part she seized upon was that my 7 year old couldn't read and that I "didn't care" about it. What unschoolers think of as acceptance of the natural learning process can look like alarming negligence to the rest of the world.

Oh how true, and maybe for me, that's what it really all boils down to. What the rest of the world thinks.

We would love an ongoing conversation in the comment section. What was your experience with your kids learning to read?

Twitter Becomes Friendship

I met Suzie on Twitter. April 17th 2009 to be exact. I will honestly say I was first attracted to her photo and positive tweets. When I look back at our first tweets to each other, they were just very positive and somehow magnetic towards each other. A couple of crafty women, raising kids without school.

One month later, I said on Twitter that my husband was going to California to attend a reception for an exhibition of his paintings at a gallery a short drive from Suzie's home. Suzie said she was going to go to his show and meet him in person! Well, I was just thrilled!

When I think of it now, Twitter has always been Suzie to me. I joined a mere month before finding her there and ever since then we have connected at least once a day there.

Fast forward two more years, my husband and Suzie have now hung out in person on several occasions, always sparked by one of his annual shows in California. Somehow I have become closer to someone I have never met through the stories my husband retells of their adventures.

Suzie and I have spent the last 2 and a half years getting to really know each other through casual conversations on Twitter. We take to email on a semi-regular basis when something ignites our interest. Sometimes 140 characters is not enough. We start a small conversation, and if it gets juicy, we take it to email. Often with Twitter, I feel I need to just skim the surface of a topic. I don't want to get too personal, or let out more information then I want to.

We have been writing epic emails late at night to each other about various topics and I aways come away with a new perspective and wisdom gained.

We talk deeply about our journey raising kids without school, our parenting philosophies (peaceful partnership with our kids), our marriages, our friendships, body image and our childhoods.

I wrote this in an email to Suzie about a year into our friendship; "I have never experienced such unconditional friendship from someone I haven't met in 'real life' before." Our relationship continues to evolve and we still wish we could sit across from each other and talk face to face. I wonder what it would be like to meet her, for the first time, with the feeling that we are already so connected?

Saskafornia is our connection. Saskatchewan (me), California (Suzie). I hope you check in now and then, to see what Suzie and I are discussing from our unique perspectives.

Sam in Saskatchewan

• • • • •

I could write exactly what Sam has, but in reverse. I think my twitter account dates from early April 2009, so Sam must have been one of the first people I interacted with. I remember loving her blog, which was full of both her own beautiful art and the art projects she did with her (then) small children. Oddly, though, one that I remember best was the jello post, because my grandmother made something very similar and I had not seen such a dessert in years.

But as Sam says, early on it seemed like we just spoke the same language. Every now and then a particular voice cuts through all the noise on twitter, and Sam's always rang clear to me somehow. From the first email we exchanged, she felt familiar, like a friend I had always had but just hadn't met.

After two years of emailing, snail mailing, and even the occasional video greeting, we began thinking about putting some of our conversations into a joint blog. We talked about what it might be about, how we might format it, who it might be aimed at...and then we thought, screw it—let's just start.


Here we are, just starting.

Suzie in California