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?