For most children, would you say reading needs to be explicitly taught, or can it be.

[kathymuggle]

 

I thought I was pro-unschooling, but I don't get radical unschoolers at all. The kid is asking for help learning a vital skill are her mom is posting asking for tips on dealing with her DD's frustration. What on Earth?! I'd be frustrated too if I kept asking for help and someone refused every time.

 

 

USing is largely about waiting for the child to be ready and motivated to want to do something.

 

I think the vast majority of USers would teach (or "facilitate") a child learning to read if they asked.

 

I don't think it is indicative of USing as a whole. There are people who make whack-a-doo decisions in every group.

[thescrappyhomeschooler]

I picked it up, but I taught my younger sister how to read. I think the rest of my siblings picked it up. My older son picked it up with nothing other than my reading to him. My younger son picked it up with my teaching him the sound each letter makes. I am still teaching both of them phonics. Phonics makes a little sense out of a sometimes bizarre language, so I think it's important for them to at least recognize how certain sounds can be formed.

 

I think that with lots of listening and observation of reading, many kids can just pick up reading. I don't think everyone can, though. Just like my younger son somehow "gets" math without my having to explain too much, but my older son needs detailed instruction. I think some people need to know the mechanics of something before it is fully processed by their brains. And then people with certain disadvantages like dyslexia also need to approach reading from another angle.

[....]

My 2nd son learned to read just by being in the room with his older brother, but that still is being taught in a way.

 

With 4 kids, I'm seeing a lot of this, too. Our 4 yro is suddenly drawing letters everywhere...the 6 yro started writing in cursive a couple of weeks ago...the 4 yro and 6 yro know fractions...:D

 

They're just picking up on all my conversations with the older kids throughout the day. It's an environment thing. They're not super-geniuses, it's just that homeschooling is giving them a great environment to learn.

[Donna]

I taught my oldest two. My oldest was asking to learn and picked it up quickly with just a little instruction. He loved being read to and would listen to book after book. I needed to use a few different programs with my middle ds before it "clicked" but then again he was never one to sit and listen when I read so that could have a lot to do with it.

 

My dd learned to read without explicit instruction...just by being read to a lot and memorizing books. She brought me a book one day and read it fluently. No phonics instruction and she's a natural speller. Her reading was tested by a reading specialist friend (who's tested her a number of times just for fun) to be above high school level when she was almost 8yo.

 

So, I don't think every child needs phonics instruction. I didn't need it either and was completely bored to tears when doing phonics in K and 1st grade...it was so significant a boredom that I still remember it now. LOL

[amo_mea_filiis.]

Since my ds didn't learn to walk or talk naturally, it makes sense that he would need to be specifically taught anything else he does, especially reading.

[JFSinIL]

My kids all needed to be specifically taught.

[Liza Lee]

I just picked up reading and was reading well by the time I started school.

 

Of my five children, one of them was like me. She and I seem to have some kind of intuitive understanding of phonics and we both spell well, too. I remember asking her one time how she figured out the different sounds made by the letter "c" and she told me that she had asked about the word "circus" and I had explained it then. I also had to tell her a rule about when to double the letters in the middle of a word. This daughter is also gifted when it comes to other languages.

 

My other two daughters probably have mild dyslexia, but they were not diagnosed. They had to be taught to read. It took time, but they eventually learned to read well. One daughter was in public school K-2 and the other daughter never went to school until she started college. The one who went to public school did not have good phonics instruction there. I had to do a lot of remediating with her.

 

My two sons have severe dyslexia. If I had waited for them to just pick up reading, I would still be waiting. It took years of instruction for them to learn to read. They finally "got it" and they both read well and read for pleasure. However, neither one of them could spell at all. About 16 months ago, they started tutoring with an instructor who uses the Barton method in order to improve their spelling skills. They have memorized dozens of spelling rules and it has helped a lot.

 

Based on my small sample, I think that there are a few kids who can pick up reading with very little instruction. But most of them need phonics, and a few of them need intensive instruction.

[JessReplanted]

I definitely think that you need to start teaching reading (beginning with letter sounds) and that some kids pick it up easier than others.

 

My 5 year old is a natural reader. She often reads words that I think are going to stump her. Right now she is using a 'reader' which my son used during the middle of first grade.

 

With my son, every step of the process was w o r k - until somewhere in 2nd grade, where it all became very natural. Now he is a great reader.

 

Now my 4 year old is starting to read, but we've been working at it, just a little bit at a time, for a while.

[Word Nerd]

My girls both picked up how to sound out CVC words on their own but still received reading and phonics instruction. I don't get the article author's view at all. The daughter wants to learn to read and has asked for help, and mom just says "oh, sorry, there isn't really anything I can do." :confused:

[happypamama]

DH and I both pretty much just picked up reading; so did DD, and she was reading chapter books before she turned five. My DS1, otoh, is 6 1/2 and just now learning to read; he really wasn't ready before. He has benefited very well from doing 100 Easy Lessons with me. In his case, he might have just picked it up at some point, but I think actively teaching him worked perfectly (and it would not have a year ago; he was just not ready then).

[Lady Florida.]

:iagree: And the ones who "just pick it up" can run into trouble later if they had no phonics instruction. Which SWB lecture talks about remediating phonics with 4th/5th/6th-graders?

 

My son didn't need to be taught, nor does he have trouble now, at 14, with unfamiliar words. He needed no remediation. However, it wasn't my plan. While I was busy trying to figure out what program to use to teach him to read, he was busy teaching himself to read. It shocked me. He also managed to pick up most of the rules of phonics, though I had to point out some of the exceptions to him.

 

As sunflowers pointed out though, he didn't really "just pick it up". Dh and I read to him from the beginning. Daily. We played word games, even when he was sitting on the potty for potty training. (Let's think of all the words that start with the buh sound). We did this kind of thing every day. Often it was ds who initiated it. He would ask questions. "What makes the shhh sound?" We didn't use a curriculum. We didn't sit down and give him formal lessons. We answered his questions and provided an atmosphere that values reading. He learned to read and he learned phonics without formal teaching.

 

I'm not suggesting this is how it should be done. I'm not suggesting that most kids can or should learn this way. In fact I never planned for it to happen this way with my own kid, and was caught off guard when it did. He's only one kid. He's not a sample. But he's proof that it can happen, at least with some kids.

[DawnM]

All 3 kids were very different. My oldest I tried all sorts of reading curricula and he just didn't "get it" until about age 8.

 

Middle son I did minimal teaching and he got it.

 

Youngest seriously learned on his own. Well, we did use the reading program from CLE, but he got through only a bit of it before I realize he could read already.

 

Dawn

[higginszoo]

I come from a family where for several generations, most dc have just picked it up. We tend to be an unusual bunch in other ways, too, though, so I don't know that it would occur to me to make the generalization that because I never had to teach any of my 4 dc to read (the latest started at 5), that it would carry over that most dc wouldn't need to have instruction. I have no problem with waiting until a child is 7 or 8 to see if they'll pick it up before trying, but even some of my unschooling friends have found that at that point, they've had to step in and say 'let's learn to read' and used some form of curriculum so that the child can then progress again on their own.

[SailorMom]

Let me add: if your child is one of the ones who cannot just pick it up, I think they are being done a great disservice by not being taught phonics. I think one should err on the side of caution by teaching all children phonics. Some won't need it; some wouldn't have needed it; some desperately need it. They don't come with labels on which kind they are!

 

I am very emphatic about this because I have a daughter with severe dyslexia.

 

 

I have a son with severe dyslexia as well. My older son and I just "picked it up" - and we are wonderful spellers, excellent readers, etc. etc. I never learned phonics, neither did he. Phonics makes no sense ot us what-so-ever.

There are always multiple ways to learn something, reading included, and no one way is inherently better.

My dyslexic son can out-read all of the kids his age I have met, and enjoys it more :) And - no phoincs there either.

So - I appreciate the 'no lables" and ther eis no way to tell, I get that, but I don't think it is a disservice. Trust me - the three of us would have been done a disservice by being made to try to learn it.

[Mommy22alyns]

Why did you post this?? It's like a bad car crash! :banghead: Must. Stop. Reading! :banghead:

 

 

That whole forum is like that. :001_huh::auto:

[dragons in the flower bed]

Walking and speaking isn't picked up in isolation of any instructional activities. The way we teach children to speak and walk is so intuitive and integrated that we don't think of it as teaching. Some families teach reading this way. Some teach music or math that way, too. You can see the differences sometimes in studies about how childrearing practices differ among socioeconomic classes. Kids growing up with very highly educated parents tend to pick up reading and math seemingly magically, but it's really in all the little conversations and other interactions parents have with their children day to day.

Edited December 4, 2011 by dragons in the flower bed