Learning To Read

This is something that I feel I have to blog about.

Although interested in what are classed as "holistic" methods which often delay academics (hooray since they are given much too early), I believe that home education gives a different perspective than a school model of learning to read.

Springy can read at the age of 6. I was curious as to where she was and slipped in a reading game (to grown ups they are the Schonell and Burt reading tests). Her reading age is 8 years 4 months now and she enjoys reading. She still enjoys being told stories but when she can't sleep at night, she either wants to play in her room or read a book.

When she was younger (and still) we read and told stories, did puppet plays, sang lots of rhymes, recited poems and went on nature walks. The latter are great - whether it's just being out in the garden or going for a walk down a lane to see the hedges you can learn so much. Nature walks need to be child-paced. They love to stop, bend down, splash in puddles, pick up stones, watch beetles cross in front of them, see a spider on its web, follow the swifts as they dip or laugh at a pied wagtail in a carpark. All this is helpful for a small child in terms of they are in their body, they are breathing, they are moving and their eyes are tracking, their noses are inhaling and their fingers are touching leaves, ladybirds, cobwebs and muddy puddles. If they go all year round they see the seasons change (depending on where you live), they get rained on, the sun shines, the wind blows and plays with the leaves and so on.

If you tell The Enormous Turnip over and over, your child remembers it. They feel what it is like to pull and pull and finally, Pop!, out comes the turnip. If you tell them the Gingerbread Man they know "run, run as fast as you can" - the poetry of the language comes alive through assonance and alliteration but they just feel it as a giggle or joy.

She started about 18 months ago with wanting to play I Spy and although in Waldorf circles it probably is too much of a head thing, my attitude is that she is enjoying it. She has learnt loads of nursery rhymes (as I did) and no doubt she will pass them on to her children. They are full of phonemes and they sound nice too (well apart from some of the violent ones but we left a lot of those out).

In the past year or so our wet-on-wet painting has resulted in Springy announcing that she can see shapes. She sees shapes in her curtains - things that are not are appearing to her. Some of these shapes are now letters but she is dualist - they are things such as fairies as well as letter shapes. If she only saw the letters then I would be concerned but she's between worlds still and her imagination is very beautiful.

She started to ask what words said. Goats' Milk she could read on the carton over a year ago now. It was guesswork but I could not lie to her - "Yes, that says Goats Milk". And more words started to trickle in and now there is a flood and if she doesn't know and it seems to be relevant and she's not too busy bouncing then she will ask. She wanted to write her name so I showed her and now she writes little letters with "I Love you mummy" on and draws little pictures alongside. I have a draw full of her cards and pictures.

With reference to her reading, if this was a child who at 5.5 and 6 years was only wanting to sit with a book then I would be concerned. However, Springy is a bouncy thing who spends the day moving about, will cartwheel and leap onto cushions and although I'm a "holistic school" education failure because I have an early reader and writer I don't care. By home education standards I'm the only board that counts and I know we still have a long way to go but 0-6 years has been great so far. :)