Learning to Read

During our homeschool journey, I have taught my four children to read, although I would use the term taught rather loosely.  As anyone who has taught a child to read should know, a significant amount of being able to read is exposure to language, conversation about what is being read, the child being  ready and interested in learning to read, and then the child actively engaging in the decoding process that is reading.

With my children I have basically taken the philosophy of reading to them more or less from birth, with the exception of Willow, who as the oldest, probably had stories read to her from 2ish.  The others, all being younger, simply got to join in when there was a story.  I distinctly remember reading all sorts of kids classics to the older two kids, whilst breastfeeding Arden in bed, or sitting on the floor with him, and then again doing similar sorts of things later on when Irving was born.

Willow was gradually getting the idea of reading, via our Steiner approach to exposure to letters, drawing and modelling them, and making shapes with our bodies, when we had our first moderator meeting in Adelaide.  The moderator came and told Willow about the MS Readathon.  Willow was very keen to get involved, and in about 6 weeks time she had completely worked out how to read and was onto reading things like Enid Blyton and Rainbow Magic.  She was 7 and 1/2 when she got it.

Willow reading Harry Potter

Gabriel was much dreamier, and he wasn't in a hurry to read.  He kinda looked like he was reading much of the time, if you didn't know him, but he was particularly engaged with the pictures in the books that he was interested in.  So it became a natural transition for him to go from reading the pictures of comics like Asterix, and TinTin, to one day reading them.  He was 9 and 1/2.

Gabriel reading Games Workshop

Arden was keen to read in a similar manner to Willow. I had learnt a bit more about the process of learning to read by the time I was assisting his development in understand, and I noticed just how much he was memorising what we were reading.  I had discovered by this point, that one of the developmental steps in learning to read, was to memorise what was being read.  With the older two, I suspected that I hadn't really noticed this process, because I was also memorising some of their picture books, because they liked to read a few specific ones over and over. (I can still partly recite "The Gruffalo"!)  Arden had a different selection of preferred books, and a wider rotation, perhaps because we had more books by the time he was born, and so I really noticed him passing through this stage, and then I noticed that he had particular words that he knew.  I remembered this from the older kids, and from my own journey learning to read.  And then one day, also at 7 and 1/2 like Willow, he worked it out.  He used to spend a lot of time reading these kids Encyclopedia books by Time Life that we had that the kids called "The Question Mark Boy" books, because of a picture on them all.

Arden and Irving with some worksheets.

Irving has always been interested in physical objects, and constructions and how things go together much more than the others, and possibly because of them he was also interested in non-fiction books from the beginning.  Similarly to Gabriel he would look through comic books regularly, and also non-Fiction books with picture instructions, and he liked to read the kids encyclopedias  regularly too.  He followed a journey somewhat similar to Arden's, and worked out how to decode the alphabet by 8 1/2.

Irving and Willow reading together.

I always found it curious that all of them were half way through a year, when they worked out how to read, I kinda wondered about that.  I myself remember working it out about 6 and a half.  I remember the slow, strained feeling of trying to understand, and then one day feeling like a light had gone on, and I simply had it.  From there I seem to remember devouring picture books for about 6months, before graduating to things like Enid Blyton, and later Roald Dahl.

I think the lightbulb moment is in itself something so important for adults to remember when "teaching" reading.  That it is the child's journey of processing, and that when they are ready, it will simply happen and be easy.  I learnt from a homeschooling friend, around when Willow had first learn to read, that the normal age range for kids to begin reading was 2yrs old to 13yrs old, with most kids being in the middle, at about 7yrs.  With the education model  being so strongly driven towards learning via reading, being at the late end of that curve would be traumatising.  Our homeschool friend, whose older 2 children attended school, were at the late end of the curve, and it was only her youngest, who was homeschooled the whole way through, who developed a more constructive relationship to reading.  

I tend to wonder if the children who learn to read later, have tended to be later speakers, but I haven't had the inclination to investigate further.  I know that has been the case in my family.  I also know that because we value more modes of learning, that we haven't hurried people to read.  But we haven't taken a completely natural learning approach either.  There are so many other ways to learn, and school only really focuses on the intellect.  I remember my Mum telling me, that aged 3, she would get me to select casettes for her,  I couldn't read, but I could correctly identify all the cassettes.  I've always been interested in geometric patterns and art, and I came to the conclusion, that I must have been recognising the patterns of the shapes and colours too.

Work

I'd been hoping to get to an art/craft open day last weekend, but unfortunately it didn't happen as I had a sore neck.  Instead we did our usual thing, which was hang out in the cultural centre, whilst Damien busked.

We're almost at the end of our planned work now, which is lovely.  Currently we're reading Peter Pan and Ivanhoe.  Peter Pan, as the kids will be going to the ballet in December, and Ivanhoe, as Gabriel is doing a block on medieval history.

Medieval history has been filled with some interesting activities,as well as some written pieces.  Arden's been getting a bit involved too.

This is Gabriel's castle plan.


Then our attempts at illuminated letters.
Gabriel's "T"


Arden's mixture of letters.


My "P"


Then Gabriel's final activity for the week, was a diagram of a Viking Longship.  He was given the choice of learning about Caliphs, Viking boats, Germanic tribes, or the Templars.


Arden and I have come to the end of his alphabet work.  He can read a few words here and there, and has been experimenting with writing words quite a bit. Tomorrow he's off to a class about making a book.

These are our recent paintings of letters.

Arden's "O" painting of a pot, followed by mine.

Arden's "U" painting followed by mine, of a tub.

Willow's currently working on physics, so far she's progressed through sounds and light.  She's done some interesting experiments involving waves in water and seeing how they move, and also some experiments with lenses, and how they focus light.

Physics Finale and Grimm's Break

Gabriel has come to the end of his physics block this week, and overall it seems to have been a success.  We were working on magnestism, and Gabriel and Arden both really enjoyed it.  Magnets and their amazing abilities to repel and attract, go down very well with little people it seems.

Gabriel also worked on a lead pencil version of his drawing from last week- it seems to have helped his shading quite a bit doing a colour version.

Willow is working through the second part of her block on history; focusing on the French Revolution and reading the Scarlet Pimpernel.  As part of this part of her history block, she will be looking into class systems around the world.

Arden and I read the 'Three Spinsters' out of Grimm's this week, and worked on the letterss 'y' and 'g'.  'Y' was a small sewing project- the first that he's done, and he really enjoyed it.  Here's our sewing- my 'y' is on the left, and Arden's is on the right.

This is Arden's and my modelling this week.  I did the word 'golly' and he did the letters 'e','g' and 'y'.

Some Highlights from this Past Week

This past week has seen us reading 'The Golden Goose'.  Arden has liked this story much better than Rapunzel, and we only worked on two letters this week, so there was some extra time for modelling.  Since we were working on the letters 'b' and 'k' and Arden was curious how they sounded together, we decided to put some vowels in the middle, and made the word 'book'.

This is Arden's painting of the king from the Golden Goose- using the 'k' to make the king.

Willow has been experimenting with weaving on our new square loom, as part of her craft project for this term.

We've also been setting up an etsy account that she can sell some craft stuff on, as part of her main project this year.  Her project is focusing on creating her own small craft business.  She had her first market stall for this year, selling her brooches at City Farm for mothers day, and we're now looking at ways that she can sell online too, as well as other projects that she might like to try selling.

This is from Gabriel's geometry from last and this week, dividing a square into halves and thirds, and extending the pattern.

Gabriel has still been working on physics this week- we've been looking at light.  There's been some fun experiments with colour, and light and darkness this week.

Finally I came home tonight to find Arden playing his own special version of pinball.  Gabriel came up with the layout, and Arden added the flips-  I thought this was very cool!

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2025 

Willow didn't progress far with the craft business.  She ran the stall for a while, but people were interested in her things being cheap, and since she was using pure wool, it didn't progress far.  I'm not sure what happened with the etsy account now.

At this point she was still busking regularly- most likely flute, and she was pretty happy with how much money she made from that.  When she was older she would sing, and later she gave up busking, and after completing her Diploma in 2017, she worked in a cafe for a year.