Unschooling reading

Unschooling is interest based learning where children naturally learn from their environment and are trusted to learn what they need to learn to succeed in life.  Parents act as a resource person and role model to help educate their children in a respectful manner.  Unschooling will often look different with each family.  This blog includes my family's approach to the unschooling philosophy.  I will sometimes include ideas and challenges and sometimes I will include a blog of an actual day or event of our unschooling family.  Feel free to follow my blog if you would like to learn more.  Thank you for taking time to read my blog!


Learning to read has been challenging for my oldest son.  Teaching him to do this has also been challenging for me.  I guess I figured that I would teach him some basic reading concepts and read to him a lot and teach him simple words and he would learn them and build on what he was taught and be reading on his own fairly quickly since he had so much one on one time from me and I was so consistent with him.  I started doing this when he was 4 or 5 years old because many people I would talk to said that their young children were reading well around that age.  Initially, I was using a more structured approach with my son where we would sit down a couple times a week for a couple hours and work through books, workbooks, and flashcards prior to learning about unschooling when my son was 5 1/2.  We would also do spelling test once a week with very simple 1 or 2 letter words or words from books he was learning.  However, he was not learning.  It was very frustrating for me.  He just could not understand and would not remember anything I was teaching him.  I felt hopeless at that point mainly because I was comparing his progress to what I assumed other children were doing at his age based on what other parents were saying and what I had observed with some little reading geniuses. 


I then visited a friend from college I had not seen for years.  Her husband and she both had education degrees and her husband had been working as an elementary school teacher for many years.  I expressed my concerns about my little 5 year old boy not being able to read.  Her husband just laughed and said, "ah, he can't read" and pointed to his 8 year old son.  I thought that seemed odd and then they explained to me that as a child's brain develops, other aspects of learning are more beneficial than early reading.  They said that a child's eye site and brain development is often not ready for reading until a child is 9, 10 or older, so early reading can be detrimental towards brain development younger than that age if a child is not yet ready.  I also had another person who was an occupational therapist tell me the exact same thing as my teaching friends did about children not being able to read until the age of 9 or 10 and early reading can be detrimental if a child is not ready.  They did not know one another, but had the exact same information.  So why is early reading pushed in the schools when only a small percentage of the children are ready to read at 5 or 6?  This is very confusing for me.


I then took a break from pushing reading and we started to move into the unschooling realm.  I discovered 'Bob Books' and the book, 'Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons' when my son was about 6 years old and started using those about once a week or when my son showed interest in working on his reading.  He started gaining confidence with his reading after this and was able to sort of do basic reading, but at 7 1/2, he still is not fluent with reading and perhaps he will not be until he is 9 or 10, but my concern is that his younger brother and sister could surpass him with reading levels since they are so interested in learning since they do not know anything but unschooling  and I do not want this to happen.  It would be embarrassing for him and make him feel bad about himself, so I am encouraging him to practice his reading daily, but not pushing him to read things he is not comfortable reading.


So we are going to get into a routine of having reading time daily after lunch.  I have my 7 year old son pick three books that are more advanced than Bob Books, but still basic and I have him read them over and over until he gets them correct.  Another idea that I recently learned about that has helped motivate my son to want to read is I started an email address for him and found him some local pen pals with family and friends.  He loves checking his messages and writing back and thinks this is so much fun.  If he misspells words, I write them on big lined paper for him to practice writing them.  This has been the most positive experience for him to learn to read and write, so I would recommend it and it does need to be monitored closely.  


These experiences have put my mind at ease.  I no longer do the force reading like I did initially, which was not productive.  I am much more relaxed with reading time and I no longer get frustrated with my son when he misses a simple word we have been over millions of times.  He will understand reading concepts as he matures and develops.  If he reaches the age of 10 and has not progressed beyond where he is now, I will seek extra help, but at this time, I am just going to relax and enjoy my children and reading lots of books.  Reading fluency will come with time.