Look into our window

My, our, daughter turned 7-years-old the end of November. We homeschool. I believe the foundation for learning begins with learning to love God, and to love family, and to particularly love learning (natural to some, not to others) … I believe it right to light their fires for learning whether it’s easier or harder, for once the fire is lit, it burns. It can be extinguished, but that’s why we keep our children with us until they are old enough to set free to fly.

So then comes the learning, the little things toddlers and young children learn come in daily life. Reading is the most important thing for them to learn after all the above things. This is a big step, reading. Phonics is said to be the right method to teach English, but other information exists to say differently. Various methods have been employed by the educational forces in America, to limit this discussion to the U.S.

Vertical Phonics is a good method, is said to be what EVERY person can use to learn to read English. I have a system in this method, but I can definitely say it’s too intensive and just doen’t really work for a VSL child UNLESS they already can read 😉

Reading English is more intuitive for some folks I think, as it is for me. I learned to read in my early years and was always in the uppercrust of reading levels and groups in elementary school. I had phonics of this and that sort from first to second grades, I was in three different schools for those two grades. I can recall when I couldn’t read. I can’t recall “learning to read” though. I mostly can recall my before-school years as trying to “read cursive” and I couldn’t, and I made a bunch of loops on paper once and said that “I was writing”. I do think I must have had some sort of ABC foundation in print at that time, 4 or so years old. I went to kindergarten at 5 years of age, and there we didn’t do much with “writing” as far as I know, more play and coloring and such (as is right for a youngster anyhow, IMO, though I don’t agree with sending youngsters off “to school”)

In first grade we had Dot and Jim books (which I began to collect recently, from the 50’s through 60’s, I was in 1st grade in 72/73 but haven’t found editions for those years, just 1969 and previous.) which are “phonetic keys to reading” and all that goes into that is more than phonetic, the materials are workbooks for the children, and the teacher has more resource, pictures cards, word cards, sentence strips, etc. I don’t have all the pieces to be able to see what’s what with the beginning of the program, and what I have I haven’t sat down with to pour out an understanding of it from this side of my education, overall the most standout feature of the series is how the pictures change through the version printings … the Political Correctness transformation is eye-popping to me.

So in any case I see English without phonetic rules. I have tried a few methods with our eldest, now 9. He was “ready to start” official reading for a long while and I learned fast that what I naturally had done was right for us, for him, and that the few “programs” I slightly tried were not going to work easily and were NOT worth the effort.

At 9 Russell is reading whatever I give him. He’s read nearly all his Dad’s old Hardy Boys books. He’s read many early readers and beyond. He’s currently reading The Two Towers, having finished The Hobbit and The Fellowship of the Ring first. He reads Young Adult books of a non-mature content quite easily. He speeds through material. That’s self-reading. Aloud reading is a totally different skill and I don’t push that to be fluent, only early aloud reading is helpful to determine that a child is actually able to read a page and understand what they are reading (you can see a lightbulb turned on in their head/eyes.) When a child is in their teens or when ready, aloud reading can become a grand skill to hone.

Children might be able to read at a very young age, like 4, but the intense work it takes is overkill, when that child can just slowly come up to speed and take-off when they are absolutely ready. That’s what I did with Russell overall, not thorougly as there was a Distar trial (Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons) in which the first few lessons were alright, but further going was rocky precipised terrain that neither he nor I wanted to cross. Various things are available in daily life to teach reading, signs on buildings, roadways, in the kitchen, anywhere there are letters and words and symbols and pictures. I felt a bit of pressure from DH to teach a “method” so I tried Distar.

DH credits Reader Rabbit being what got Russell Reading. We got some of those CD’s and let the children use them for a spell. Russell’s skill in reading, IMO, didn’t improve while using those programs, but just showed what he already knew. He already knew his ABC’s and how to print them out, and how to spell his name and many other small words. He’s intuitive to understanding how things work, so it’s natural that basic ABC knowledge is all one needs to navigate many things in life, and moreso for him. Sometime after that we stopped using Reader Rabbit due to a computer issue.

DH laments not using [Reader Rabbit] and thinks we need to get some of that again so that our daughter can read. She has been in a state of “early reader” since she was about 4, just like Russell was. I didn’t put her through any Distar trials 🙂 so she’s fortunate. I got a vertical phonics system though to aide her, using the Penny Primer we went through the simple lessons, and she learned how to do that whole thing, but it didn’t transfer into “reading sentences” at all … I admit we quit, I didn’t see the point in doing anything that was stressful and not sticking. I work with my children in minor big ways all the time. It’s the fabric of life, not “school”. So all along she’s been learning and getting read to be a fluent reader, just as Russell did before sometime after his 7th birthday he began reading more and more and was getting fluent in reading to hisself.

Victoria has been “complaining” for several months that she “wants to read” so that tugs on Daddy’s heartstrings … not Mama’s though, I know her inside and out. When she’s ready she won’t “say” she “wants to read” she’ll say/do something else.

In November I got on her case a bit and talked to her in a heightened fashion about what it is to read, and what she needs to do. I told her it’s up to her. DH heard that and didn’t like it. I have showed him over and again what it is, it’s the child being ready, not the parent drilling them, which makes a ripe read-ability in a child. So I have gone over that a few times, so it’s clear to her and others what I mean: until she can “make sense of it” it won’t help her to drill her over sounding out word after word in a book. I told her I wanted her to read, but when she’s ready, not before. I “test” her time to time to see what’s what with her. Really it’s important, for her most important, to not stress a child, she’s gets frustrated and mad if something doesn’t work. So she’s saying “I want to read” and she gets frustrated if anyone tries to help her read a sentence. She can read many words, just not “sentences” and “books”. I tell her she can read, she’s an “early reader” and will be able to read better sooner than later, so that it’s up to her to do it, she has to keep on doing what she can and when she can read, it’ll be a “click” a “fip of a switch” the flame of readability with flare up and be visible. She wanted to read right then still, and so I said she should try herself and it’d be nice if she could before her birthday, but if not it wouldn’t be a bad thing.

Her birthday is over, and yesterday was over a week from it, and that day I was talking to the 9-year old about dog training, talking about reading a book I have on it and that I want him to read it so we can together work on training our very-in-need-ofbeing-trained-over-a-year-old-dog. This got to be a lengthier talk about dog obedience, happier family life, children obeying, growing up, entrepenurialish talk, responsibility of sons, taking care of sister when older if she needs it, etc. Just turned 7-year old showed up mid-conversation and sat there listening. Impact of it seemed to be great. Something was said about reading, and imediately it was evident to me it was time for a reading trial. I asked the children to find a Dr. Seuss book. We have many, and I’ve let them be picture books more than “read alouds” and haven’t used them at all with them in a couple of years. I figured this would be a decent thing to show if she could start reading better or wasn’t quite ready yet.

What book did they come back with? The classic “Green Eggs and Ham”. Oh, a good one. Long, complicated enough and it would prove a stumbling block for sure if she wasn’t ready. I hadn’t myself thought of using one as that complicated, but it’s what they brought back to me, so I went with it.

I explained things and helped her sound out things (this never went well in the past with things she didn’t know already.) I don’t try “phonics” at all, except for “A” the only phonogram she remembers, but can’t use. I try to make her see how it works, but she just “can’t see it”. No big deal, it really doesn’t make much sense to me either.

Honestly it’s the phonogram-ness of it that clues me out. It’s supposed to be that if you know phonegrams you can decode any reading material … I think it too tedious to know phongrams when you can just “know how to read” by reading when it makes sense … and using that experience to read more challenging material and learn more words, and that it’s not difficult to do it this way, for me at least.

Darling eldest will say something about a book and mispronounce something from it, just a simple laugh and pronunciation correction from me will aide him in gaining pronunciation understanding and guide him in the right direction for the future.

“Wound” is one such thing, and he gets it now, without some rule to tell him why. I’d have to get materials out to know what it is to tell him, and that’s tedious, just to know how it works works. 🙂

I’m a good speller, and a bad speller. Most of the time I’m good. I was good at spelling tests in school, vocabulary and spelling was an easy class for me … I didn’t study at all, and got near 100 or that or more on most tests in elementary school (which went through 6th grade.) In adult life I spell alright if my brain is “turned on”. If I’m in a lull, forget it. I only “write” when I’m turned on though, and any lull time writing is only neccesity. There’s that’s a word I don’t always get. Sometimes I do, sometimes I don’t. If I had it on a spelling list to be tested on I’d know it fine and dandy, but past that, I see it printed out and know what it is. I write it down like above and do it right or wrong, and know it’s not quite right when it’s not right, but close. In any case, you all can see what I mean, whether or not the “c” and the “s” are done right. 🙂 I mean, it’s clear what the intent of the word is, even if it’s not spelled exactly right. So for me it’s this, the more I read and write my spelling gets better. When I read less and write less, my spelling suffers. So it’s practice that makes perfect. Most words I get right all the time. Typos are often just finger placement issues and timing issues, not head got it wrong issues, for typing with a keyboard. Sometimes some words are troublesome for real, most are not, but the ones like my example above can be troublesome and are worth the harrassment for me … there, another word, are they both doubled, or not? I don’t care to distress myself over it, either/or it’s noticeable what word I mean to be using.

It’s that which I know about it, it’s intuitive reading and understanding of language. By far my vocal vocabulary is much larger than my written vocabulary, and my reading vocabulary is vast and unnumbered.

Foreign language seems easy to me, I understand it easily, but haven’t spent time actually becoming fluent in reading or speaking any language other than my native language of American English. I deem this part of my intuitive model of thinking, that since English is so strange, any romantic or latin based language is fairly straightforward, and I pick up word and phrases easily, and think in terms of those as foreign, as something other than English, I don’t hear and see English as equaling foreign words, I get an idea of what it is in picture, as I do exactly the same in English.

It’s a Visual-Spatial thing I speak of, the ‘pictures’ are right-brain based. Language and spelling are connected to pictures for me and things without pictures can be trouble. That’s why it’s key to learn how to “spell” any word alone if you want to:

Know the letters forward. Close your eyes and picture them in your mind, making 3-D or 2-D image as you naturally do, whatever method of forming them you have, and picture the word and read it from start to finish, then read it backwards as you look at it.

For a Visual-Spatial learner they will know that word now. Recall of picture is possible if they were able to do that exactly as above. It means a focus was attained, a picture created and saved under that word name. (think: computer)

Distraction or frustration won’t make a permanent picture, hence the belief I have in how to teach reading to a VSL, naturally and just learn letters and sounds in normal life and put pictures to things, words to symbols, symbols to words, symbols to letters and sounds and it’s intuitive and not a “rule based” thing. When it clicks it’ll be that those pictures come to life as words and put together into sentences and when that happens reading ramps up and then one day officially a child will read their first full book, with some help, and later read it all alone, and later read more all alone.

Last night Victoria read half of “Green Eggs and Ham” with my aide, but SHE read it. She made sense of it. First real book. Half of the book was enough for her, and this morning she was eager to continue and she worked through it and finished it. She’s an early reader still, but on a new level suddenly, understanding’s spark has lit her fire, now she can practice and it won’t be super frustrating, it’ll make sense if she tries now, when before it just frustrated her.

I have known all along that she was getting closer and closer to being an official “I Can Read” girl. She’s artistic, good at drawing pictures and coloring and seeing artyness in things. Her ability has increased a lot these last months. She likes beads too, we have gotten her a couple of “beading” sets and she’s playing with them nearly every day, making strings of necklaces, bracelets, collars for the cats, and such. Choices in what to string are all her own, and she makes interesting choices, sometimes not so lovely, but usually quite nice.

Reading is a place to be, it’s a crossroads, a place where you can start from to learn nearly anything (if it’s available printed in the languages you can read).

It’s premiere to reading that for a Christian it’s primary and truthful use is in knowing how to read in order to read the Scriptures. Anything beyond that is pure add-on. Discernment in what to read is taught through knowledge of Christ and what the Bible teaches, and the good old Trivium of Knowledge, Understanding, Wisdom that is gained through maturation of education (a lifelong process.)

Since Victoria read “Green Eggs and Ham” she has dropped the “I want to read NOW!” mantra. Guess who’s literally instantly picked it up? Asa, the 5-year old. Sigh. He’s not ready. Of course he’s not. He is using that mantra of indication of non-read-ability-readiness. He’s an early-early-reader, getting into the groove, knows letters and such, just “knows”, that’s the first level, “knowledge”. Knowlege is something, but not enough. How to implement knowlege alone is something not possible. Understanding is key. So drilling a child in knowledge is a mundane task that cannot bring understanding. Understanding is a process of maturation, and when the child is matured into that ability, it will be evident. Pushing won’t bring it on. A child themselve can feel it and can “push” themselves, of course, but not more than possible organically, it’s not “will” that brings it on, but it is something about pushing oneself forward that a child can internally get there faster if the time is close, if they “will it” they can get there faster if it’s actually there. But banging ones head on a brick wall isn’t a healthy thing, and that is what drilling a not-yet-ready-to-read is.

Drill in facts and you’ll have a fact spouting carbon based body. Facts are nothing without understanding. So if understanding is gained first, then facts don’t have to be drilled. See how that works? Wait for maturation and when the time is ripe it’s that the child will show YOU that they get it. Then the stuff can be taught easily to them. If they need phonics help, you can help them with vertical phonics at that point. Beforehand it’s not helpful to learn to read if they are Visual-Spatial.

In other words it’s WHOLE WORD learning that gets them going when they are ready. So before “understanding” just good old symbols, and pictures and words combined build a working system which is blocks easily made that will become buildings eventually, but you can’t push those bricks into building shapes before the child is ready to architect the job themself.

I hope these ideas put forth the pictures that are needed to “get it”, how it works. (and the Reader Rabbit is fun, but only redundant drilling in a fun way at best for reading, and not the actual fact of what got Russell “reading”, and not possibly got Victoria “reading” since it was too long ago that they last played with RR.)