Page Two
A TROUBLED PARENT
A reader wrote:
…I have to get this feeling out - I feel dumb! In your newsletters most of the folks have their kids reading by five, and most everyone has “school” at home. For years now I had given up the idea of keeping my kids at home because I can’t teach academics. I hate them now as much as I did in school. Advanced math turns to mush in my head (yet I can cope and reason quite well). I read all the time (I have the hugest library, everªgrowing) but phonics will do me in every time… I’ve always felt so much guilt because I didn’t do a thing with my five kids except to let them play. I’ve finally coped with that guilt (sort of) and realized (but now I’m wondering again) that it was all okay. If all I want to do, or can do, is provide craft projects, or excursions, or talks about Spirit/God, or health education (I’m heavy into natural healing), then fine, I can still do it. But it’s so scary for me and I just don’t know if I’m the home-school type. I’d rather see them play and play and then play some more. Time enough to grow up. I know you have made it clear that you will judge no one’s method, but, look, I have no method or answers, just questions and
confusion. I’ve merely outlined all I can effectively give them. I love my kids and I want them to be magical; I have no desire for the “free time” school would give me….This school question creates whole areas of guilt for me -do I give them enough, am I fair, and on and on. Sending them to school would seem to absolve me of all this guilt - “There, I’ve done my duty.” Is it possible that I am making a wrong decision about our local school? …It is a wonderful one-room schoolhouse. Generally the kids are marvelous… The teachers are too, and are very much a part of the community. The parents are all very involved and even come to school to help. The parties are community events and there is much community caring. It warms my heart to see the close bonds of friendship my children have with their classmates and teachers. I find myself wondering if the community spirit the school represents is a worthwhile reason for them to be there. What I am trying to say is that the school is everything anyone could hope for in a school, the teachers even love the kids, but it still gives grades, and it’s still 7-5 (they take a bus), five days a week… I like being with my kids. I want to be their teacher… They teach me, too, and I want to be taught. I need an objective outside opinion. The kids love school, and they should, it’s a wonderful environment, this school (except for the social garbage - meanness, etc.) I don’t know if I would be doing them a favor by keeping them out. It’s mostly me, my heart aches when they are gone. I want them to be free and only freedom teaches freedom. There, I’ve said it.
I replied:
Thanks for your lovely letter, and for saying out clear and strong what so many people feel, but are afraid to say. My first message to you is, don’t worry. Don’t worry about “teaching academics.” The one idea I keep hammering away at in GWS, before all others, is not only that it isn’t teaching that makes learning, but that most teaching actually prevents learning. You don’t have to worry that if you don’t “teach” your kids this or that, they will never learn it. We all know thousands or millions of things that nobody ever “taught” us, but that we figured out by using our eyes and ears, thinking about what we saw, heard, read, or did, and asking questions if we needed to. The human race has been learning this way for about a million years now, and your children will, too. You say that you read all the time but that phonics does you in. If you can read a lot you already “know” phonics; you just don’t know how to talk about it, and there’s no important reason to know. The only point, supposedly, of “teaching” phonics is to help people learn to read. But if you already read well, obviously you don’t need to be taught, you already “own” that knowledge in the most useful possible way.
Same goes for grammar. Grammar means the structure of a language, the way it is put together and used If you can speak, read, and write fluently, as you obviously can, then you know the grammar of the language, to put labels on parts of speech is of no importance at all. The “grammar” that is taught in schools, which is really the grammar of Latin (a very different language) clumsily pasted onto English, was not invented when Shakespeare wrote, so if he took a modern day grammar test, he would flunk. But who in his right mind could say that Shakespeare did not know English grammar? It’s fine about letting your kids play - they learn more that way than any other way. If you keep reading, and reading to them if and when you, and they, feel like it, one day they are going to get curious about what Mom does with all those books, and are going to decide that they want to do it, and in no time at all they will be reading, no pain, no strain. They may do it next month, they may do it a couple of years from now. It doesn’t make any difference, as long as, whenever they do it, they do it “because they want to. When they do it in that spirit, they will cover four or five years of school reading in a matter of months.
Beyond that, the point about a lot of the people who write in to GWS about their kids’ reading is that they “didn’t” teach them, the kids just figured it out, a thing which the human animal is extremely good at doing.
If, as you are doing, you make available and accessible to the kids the things that are most interesting and important to you, they are going to become interested in at least some of those things. If they know other adults who will share their lives, interests, world with them, so much the better. Children are interested in what we grown-ups know, do, care about. I would say you are the perfect home school type. The people who have trouble with home schooling (at least at first) are the people who feel they have to “teach” their children everything. You say you have no “method.” What I keep trying to say in GWS is that you don’t “need” a method. It’s better that you “don’t” have a method. It’s all those “methods” that have killed learning in the schools. About “magical,” that word makes me nervous if it means drawing some kind of a line and putting children on one side and the rest of us on the other. Existence, life, thought, feeling, imagination, dreams - all are miraculous and magical, and adults and children share in that magic, it’s not something that belongs to the children alone. Your little school sounds nice, but if it’s as nice as it sounds, there’s no reason why they couldn’t make an agreement with you to let your children come if and when they wanted, and stay as long as they wanted. Let the school be just one more part of the world for them to use and explore, or not use and explore, as they see fit. Then it becomes the children’s decision, not yours. If the school won’t agree to that, then they’re not as great as you think. But if the children are happy in the school, and have good friends among the children and the teachers, they will go to school for as much as they need and want of that friendship, and will stay away when they need and want something else - solitude, privacy, time to think, play work on their own projects. Children, especially when young, have a very acute and accurate sense of what their needs are, and if the means to satisfy those needs, for friendship or whatever, are at hand, they will use those means. But as I say, if the school won’t let the kids come when they want, then it’s not as great as it seems, and there’s no reason to feel guilty about not sending the children. Of course, if the children “really” want to go, are determined to go, then you have a different problem, and if their feelings are strong enough on the matter, you would probably be wise to yield to them. But let’s not worry about that for the time being. See what you can work out with the school about the children coming when they want. You say you need an “objective” outside opinion. There are no such things as “objective” opinions. An opinion is by definition subjective, and people who say otherwise are kidding themselves or lying. If your heart aches when your children are gone, that’s the best reason in the world for having them around you, at least for as much time as they want. So see if you can work out a deal where the children go to school when they want. Let me know how that works out…
CRIPPLING ONE’S CHILDREN
From Nancy Boye, Girls Club of Dallas, Dallas TX:
..Some friends of mine told me this story on returning from an extended stay in India. They had been prepared, by their studies prior to the trip, for the numbers of beggars they would encounter. But they were not prepared for, and were deeply impacted by, the numbers of beggars who were in some way maimed or crippled. In their travels, they saw so many that they questioned their Indian hosts about the reasons for this situation. They were told (by many people) that the parents of these maimed beggars, having nothing else to give their children, would cut off their children’s hand or leg in the hope of making the child a better (i.e., more pitiful) beggar.
While we can easily recognize this as a horror, isn’t it much the same thing that we do to our children, spiritually and intellectually, when we say “This is the way it is, so the best I can do is prepare you for the worst!”? If we only knew what we were saying! If we could only see that it’s the SAME! Maybe we would be able to work our way out of our own despair for the sake of a future that DOESN’T HAVE TO BE THAT WAY!!
…A teacher “caught” my 13-year-old son doing something that was against school rules. Her anger, and the fact that she was physically detaining him in the hallway, attracted a sizable group of curious students. They both ended up by screaming at each other, and (obviously!) it was my son who received the punishment. My son told me that he’d done what he was accused of doing, he knew it was against the rules, and he was willing to be lectured by this teacher. His complaint was that he’d asked to talk to her alone and not, as she insisted, in front of the other students. I agreed with my son about the unfairness of the teacher, but I reminded him that the way the system operates is that the teacher has all the power and that his only hope was to “play the game by their rules.” How did I keep myself from storming the school? Or at the very least, from commending my son’s refusal to be humiliated ªwithout a fight - in front of the other students? How, indeed!!
Could it be that, as a product of that same system, I am STILL intimidated by the authority of the school system? A friend told me of the problems that her 8-year-old son was having in school. He spent a lot of time in the principal’s office for “acting up” in class. She’d had several conferences with the teacher and the principal. They were all concerned about the boy’s inability to conform. My friend told me that she was embarrassed to have to go so often to the school for conferences and that she was very angry with her son for his obstinacy in refusing to behave in the prescribed manner….She and I both, and countless millions of other parents, were doing nothing better for our children than those parents in India. We were doing everything in our power (supposedly for the good of our children) to make them “better beggars.”…
J.P.’S SOCIAL LIFE
From Kathy Mingl (IL):…The library had some sort of weekly program for 2-yearªolds, a few months back, so a friend and I took J.P. and her little boy, Andy, there for some social exposure. The program was pretty obviously aimed at preparing them for school - sit down and listen to the nice lady, and then do what she tells you, all together -yech. We didn’t come back for “that”, again.
The next week we came later, after the program part was over, and J.P. and Andy got a “lot” of social exposure. All the 2-year-olds in the world, boiling all over the room, playing and pushing each other and yelling and fighting and grabbing everything in sight. A “very” maturing experience, all right - I think I aged a year or two in that hour, myself. J.P. loved it, didn’t want to leave and was very thoughtful all the way home.
What I noticed about all those properly school-prepared little kids is that they all seemed to go around in their own little bubbles and the parents tried to “keep” them there - “Leave that little boy alone - go find something else to play with,” etc. “I” told J.P. to look that kid in the eye and “tell” him he wasn’t finished with that toy (the boy had taken it away from J.P.). Do you know what happened? After a moment of shock, the kid lit up like a Christmas tree, and was J.P.’s friend for life. Another time we were there, a little girl pushed J.P. off a rocking horse. When he came blubbering back to me, I told him to go back and look that girl in the eye and tell her that wasn’t nice. Again, she was surprised, but she got off and played with J.P., and then didn’t want us to go home. I don’t think anyone talks to these kids as though they were real people. Amazing.
…J.P. just asked me what school is, and I’m darned if I could think of what to tell him. I finally said it’s a place where parents send their kids to get them out of the house all day, which he accepted, but I don’t think it will hold him for long. Got any ideas, quick? [JH: It’s a place where they teach you to sit still, be quiet, and do what you’re told.]
DAYCARE DADDY
From Barry Kahn (ME):
…I am presently a daycare daddy. My wife, Jean, began a two-year RN program in September, and rather than pay someone else to care for Heather and Jocelyn, I decided to try and make money by caring for other people’s kids. At present I have a two year old boy, a 3-1/2 year old girl, and her older brother who comes after school - he’s in the first grade. Quite a crew. I have absolutely no doubt that working for a living at a “regular” job is much easier than what I am doing. On the other hand, I’m getting to be an excellent cook (especially Chinese food), and the kids provide all the entertainment I could ever hope for. In addition to the 9 to 5 childcare I am still making an occasional wedding ring and also teaching English to Indo-Chinese refugees two evenings a week and Saturday mornings. I’ve had to retire from giving guitar lessons for the moment - there just isn’t any way to fit them in.
Out of morbid curiosity I asked Matthew, the first grader, if he gets to talk in school. After a glance which clearly said: “Are you crazy?” he said, “Of course not! If we talk, we have to stay after school!” “What about recess?” I asked. “Yeah, we can talk then.” “And at lunch?” “A little bit.” The next day - still morbid, I guess - I asked him why the teacher didn’t let them talk in class. “Cause if she let us talk we would scream and yell!” he replied instantly. “I let you talk and you don’t scream and yell,” I said. He shrugged eloquently and went off to play.
…My own kids, I’m happy to say, are thriving and delightful as ever. They do so many funny, perceptive, amazing things every day that it’s really hard for me to remember any particular event long enough to write it down… Half the time I forget before Jean even gets back from class! And even when I remember, there’s no way to reproduce the style, inflection, intonation, etc. Here’s a couple of samples: Heather, trying to console Jocelyn who was crying about something: “Joc Baby, Baby Joc, whatever your name is, don’t cry…” Heather, sitting in the car seat in the dark behind me as we drive to the mall, sings: “Eat cookies, eat cookies, eat cake, eat cake, eat sugar, eat sugar, eat raisins, eat raisins, eat buckwheat! Eat buckwheat!” (Repeat from beginning.) And on the way back from the mall, cries out in desperation, Daddy, my eyes keep closing and I “can’t” stop them!”
…The greatest thing about doing daycare is that I get to eavesdrop on the kids while I’m cleaning house or getting lunch together or whatever. The sophistication of 3-1/2 year old girls playing Mommy or Doctor is incredible, and the way they have learned to keep Jocelyn happy so she won’t harass them excessively is a marvel of child psychology. My only problem is that I don’t think I’m smart enough to truly grasp just how smart “they” really are! But I try.
…I would be curious to know how many GWS readers do not own a TV. We don’t. Who has the time! I find I agree with the folks who think television as a medium is basically harmful, regardless of the “quality” of the content. Radio, books, and of course live performances, make TV look like what it is: ____ (Fill in the blank).
…After one and a half years of procrastination I finally built the kids a sturdy easel for painting and drawing. I finished it last Saturday afternoon and that same evening Heather wrote her whole name by herself for the first time. Who could ask for a better thanks? Heather’s other great leap of recent weeks is a musical one: she can now carry a tune with pretty fair accuracy. Her favorite song - you’ll never guess - is “Paradise” by John Prine, which she has half memorized. The transition from atonal lack of interest to singing along and sounding good, like so many childhood jumps, seemed to take place overnight, although I’m sure some part of her brain has been carrying on a “music analysis project” since birth. Who knows? When they’re ready, they’re ready. The kids are calling me to begin bedtime rituals, so I’d best be off. First we play, then I read to Heather from an Oz book or a Narnia book, then Jocelyn crawls in between Heather and me and I tell her a story about a dog, a cat, a tree, and a bird while she makes the appropriate noises, then Joc goes back to Jean, and I tell Heather a story about Deedee an imaginary person who is usually about a half-inch high but sometimes is the size of a small elf depending on Heather’s mood. The Deedee stories always end with, “And then Deedee went to bed,” to which Heather always replies, “Just like I’m going to do.” And then we go to sleep…
BAD BOY
A friend writes:…Most people I encounter talk about an infant’s badness, and its desire to be dictator. A young friend told me about his baby boy. During the week before Christmas the parents kept the baby away from the gifts with plenty of hand-slapping. On the great day, they told him “now” he could open a package. He refused. In fact the child drew back and slapped his own little hand…
ACCEPTING NEW BABY
I wrote to a friend, at the birth of her second child:
…I’m sending along a copy of BEFORE YOU WERE THREE. I suggest that when the new baby is born - or if the baby arrives before the book, as soon as possible thereafter - you give it to D [Age 4] as a present. I think it would be fun to read to him, partly to remind him what he was like, and partly to remind him what the new baby will be going through. I guess like all older brothers and sisters, D will be thinking now and then that the little one gets more attention than he does, and is allowed to get away with a lot more. One thing that might help him (or any other older children) deal with this is to tell him, “Because you’re older, you’re going to do “everything” first. Everything the baby wants to do, you will already know how to do. Everything the baby learns to do, you will already know how to do better. That is very frustrating for the little one, so it’s only fair that younger children should get a little more attention. Besides, since they are newer in the world, and confused, and maybe a little bit scared, they need it more.” But the point is to remind the bigger kids of the huge advantages of always being bigger and always being first. It may help if they have a few specific privileges which they get just “becauseÄ” they are bigger…
The friend replied:…I want to thank you for BEFORE YOU WERE THREE, which arrived yesterday. It is a lovely book. I read part of it to D today and he acted out sections - where the authors write, “Lie flat and lift your head; this is how the baby views the world,” etc.
…Many of D’s grievances towards school seem to have disappeared or lessened considerably since A’s arrival. It’s as though a host of anxieties have been lifted from his shoulders. He no longer protests about going to school. He has stopped clinging to me and his father. And he seldom goes through the difficult bouts of babyishness interspersed with defiant independence that he’d throw in the weeks before the baby came. I think he’s relieved to have the mystery of a baby brother or sister solved at last. I imagine he was deeply uncertain what to expect. Would Mommy disappear for a while? Would Daddy too? Would this creature be bigger than he is, take his toys, make lots of noise?
He never asked these questions outright so I’m surmising with great license, but the confidence and happy peace which have reappeared in his personality and behavior are unmistakable…
CHILDREN & DEATH
From Art Harvey (NH):…Some time ago you asked about the reaction of our daughter Emily (then 2) to the death of her baby sister. It was a reasonable question but at the time rather a difficult topic for us to writeabout. Now over a year has passed. I would not call Rosemary’s death “a dreadful blow” as far as Emily was concerned. She has had some difficulty about it, partly because her mother was so upset. Emily continued to ask questions about Rosemary for several months. At first, where is Rosemary? Is she asleep? Is this Rosie’s dress? Every evening Elizabeth remembers Rosemary in her prayers, which Emily often hears. In our living room hangs a portrait of Rosemary drawn by a neighbor the day after she died. One time, when Emily was more than usual saddened by it all, she said, “We didn’t make her dead, did we?”…Emily was interested in her sister and had about the same affection toward Rosie as toward others she knows. If Emily had been a year older she would have been permitted to share in the care of Rosemary to a much greater extent, and so become more attached. As it was, she was usually frustrated when she wanted to hold Rosie or do some other thing with her for a long time. This, in my opinion, is a strong reason for having children at least three years apart.
I have heard that young children are not normally terrified at the fact of their own impending death, as in incurable illness, etc. Younger children do not seem to have a strong sense of individuality. I doubt whether a strong sense of it is a necessary part of human life. So Emily’s non-emotional reaction to Rosemary’s death, together with her continuing search for Rosemary’s proper place in her own world, satisfy my theories about the order of mankind…
Arthur, who wrote the above letter some time ago, tells us that in addition to Emily (now 4-1/2), the family also has Max (1). Another reader, Mark McGartland (IL), wrote:
…Sue and I thought it fortunate that we had taken Dawn and Nathan to a funeral home when an elderly neighbor died, for a few months later my mother died. We think that explaining death as it happened to a neighbor better prepared the children to accept the death of a grandparent, someone who meant so much to them….Some of your readers may be interested in the book DYING IS DIFFERENT by Phillis Rash Hughes (published by Mech Mentor, Box 394, Mahomet IL 61853). It uses a format of simple text and pictures, explaining death in plants, animals, and humans; it’s appropriate for even very young children…
EXTENDING UNDERSTANDING
Sasha Kariel (HI) writes:…From the time my son, Asa, was born I have included him in as many of my own activities as possible. It seemed to me that taking him to movies, restaurants, and parties was certainly more stimulating for him than a babysitter. At first it seemed like asacrifice for me since I had to spend considerable time interacting with him instead of enjoying the adult entertainment. But now I know how much I’ve gained in contrast to parents who “can’t manage” their child in similar situations. Asa and I have worked out a special relationship where learning and entertainment merge together.
Of course, including him in my life means no less than including myself in his life. When he ws an infant not yet able to crawl he often became animated and struggled while looking at a toy far across the room. When I left him alone to develop “spontaneously” he would easily lose interest in the toy and turn to something else. So I would make the toy slowly weave and hop its way over toward him. He watched the toy until it stopped just out of reach and then he struggled furiously until he grasped it. The smug look on his little face let me know that I had done something right.
Months later when he toddled over to me with a picturebook, I directed his attention to the alphabet letters and labeled them as well as the pictures. A few days later at the zoo he pointed to a letter T on a sign and said “Tee, tee!” with the same excitement he had when pointing out a monkey or a turtle.
Now Asa is three and we spend a great deal of time playing with his toy dishes. As we make pancakes I talk about each ingredient as he mixes it in, where it comes from, and how the pancakes would taste if we didn’t add it. One of his favorite jokes is staging an accident and spilling too much pretend salt into the batter. We then cough and sputter eating these “yuckie” pancakes. I have come to believe that consistently taking what Asa is doing and then deliberately extending it by adding new information - drawing him just barely beyond the edge of his understanding -has dramatically affected his ability to learn.
While I realize that many of the parents who speak in GWS about leaving their children alone to learn “by themselves” are actually participating in many ways, I think it is important to appreciate the parents’ role as a more positive one. Parents may well see themselves as facilitators of their child’s learning experiences. I would find it very helpful if more parents could write GWS about the strategies they use to facilitate their child’s learning, that is, how they amplify and elaborate on their child’s initial expression of interest without imposing the kind of predefined goals characteristic of formal schooling…
In my reply, I wrote:
…You speak of taking what Asa is doing and then deliberately extending it by adding new information. A wonderful idea. And yet there can be a danger in it, beyond a certain point. If everything we say or do around a child has some kind of conscious pedagogical intent, if our response to everything the child does is to think, “How can I “use” this to teach him something?” we run the risk of turning our home into a school. There doesn’t have to be, and shouldn’t be, a lesson in “everything”. The line is hard to find, harder yet to describe. I like my friends to tell me things that they are interested in and that I don’t know - it is part of any good conversation. Yet I don’t like being around people who act and talk as if their mission in life was to educate me, whose relation to me is always that of teacher to pupil. When your children are little enough, almost anything you say is fascinating. But as they get a little older they will become very aware of how you talk to your adult friends, and they will not like it if you have one way of talking for friends and another, different, more teacher-ish way for your children…
HER OWN LEARNING STYLE
Pat Helland (IA) writes:…We have been so well schooled ourselves that it has been difficult for us to trust our own point of view about schooling. Reading GWS and your writings has been greatly helpful to us in making our decision to continue with home learning, something that we realized we had been doing right along. Anna provided us with the motivation to come to this decision, as well as a real education by her example of self-directed learning. Giving Anna the freedom to learn and grow has often required that we put aside our conclusions about education, however “liberal,” and allow ourselves to become the students. We have learned that the ways Anna chooses to learn are important to her, that the “learning strategies” she chooses work, and that they are strategies that schools would not tolerate.
One of the things that we have learned is that Anna often prefers to do more than one thing at a time. We first paid attention to this when she was around two, because it affected us. Anna would ask us to read, cozy up to listen, then, after just a few minutes, she would get out some toys and get wrapped up in play. At first we found this really annoying. Since she was giving no visible attention to the story, we assumed she wasn’t listening. But, if we stopped reading or complained about her apparent lack of interest, Anna would insist that she wanted the reading. So we read. And she played with her toys, sometimes in elaborate, conversational fantasy. She really did hear the stories and often interrupted her play to ask questions or make comments about them. And she remembered the stories, too. We accepted this arrangement, although at times it seemed ridiculous, e.g., when she would read a comic while we read something else to her at her request. This liking for doing more than one thing at a time has not been limited to listening to stories or the only way Anna has liked to hear stories. But, whenever she has done things this way, it has seemed important to her as a way of learning.
Another thing that we learned is that “playing with” what she is learning is Anna’s way of taking possession of it, of making it her very own. I began to understand this when Anna and I were working a seed-growing project. When we planted the seeds, I suggested that we make a chart on which we could record what we saw as the seeds grew. Since Anna wanted to be a biologist, I thought this would give her a taste of scientific observation. She liked the idea.
When the first sprouts appeared, we eagerly got out our chart. Anna neatly filled in the data and drew a surprisingly accurate representation of a sprouted pea seed in just the right place. Then she began to make the whole business her own and I began to feel twinges of anxiety about our tidy chart. Under the sprouted seed she drew a hand, and then a rabbit person attached to the hand, and then two more rabbits looking at the seed in the hand of the first rabbit. In a stupid muddle of school-thinking I almost told her that she was messing up the chart. I bit my tongue and watched. Anna worked over the chart with further drawings and talked out her fantasy as she went. The first rabbit told the other two all the “ins” and “outs” of seed growing, covering all the things Anna and I had talked about when we planted the seeds and while we waited for them to grow.
Anna has continued to take possession of her learning in drawing, fantasy, games, and “one-woman plays.” After seeing an explanation of selection in the evolution of one crab species on PBS’s “Cosmos” this fall, Anna worked out a fantasy game using pennies and dimes from her counting jar to represent two species of crabs. Then she invited me to fish with her for crabs from a toy boat on our carpet sea. We always threw back the penny crabs to live and reproduce and we always kept the dime crabs to eat. She expanded the game, adding predators and ocean storms which each took their toll on the two populations. This fantasy game clarified the dynamics of selection for Anna and made the knowledge her own in a very real sense.
None of these incidents or the many similar ones that fill Anna’s days would have a place in school. We are certain that having Anna’s ways of learning reshaped to fit what schools think are the appropriate or right ways of learning would be as crippling and as stupid as having her feet bound to fit some notion of foot size…
MEMORIZING TOGETHER
From Anne Callaway, 1760 Elm St, El Cerrito CA 94530:…I find it’s easier to memorize something if I say it out loud “with” someone else. My 4-year-old and I have memorized poems and Bible verses almost effortlessly by reciting while looking at each other. When one of us makes a mistake, the other usually says it right and this way we keep going. Keeping going is the main thing. It’s like playing music. You don’t stop and go back everytime you make a mistake - you just pick it up again. The repetition will do the job of making it perfect. No need to struggle with it… [See “Choral Reading,” GWS #3.]
READING ON HIS OWN
LeeAnn Ellis (WA) writes:…I must admit that I have been intimidated at times when reading GWS to read about young children who have taught themselves to read at age 3 or 4… My daughter (9) is now a fine reader and enjoys the world of books as much as I do. But I have to admit that I helped her learn to read with all my sneaky little tricks of word cards, phonics games, etc. She was reading well by age 8, but a lot of my time and effort went into that accomplishment. Now I know that I could have saved all that time and effort for other pursuits, because my son has shown me the easy way to teach a child to read: just let the child see how much you enjoy reading, share the world of books with him, and let nature take its course. Bobby has been read to on almost a daily basis since he was an infant. This time and effort on my part I view as an integral part of mothering and wouldn’t exchange all those warm cuddly hours for anything. When I started sneaking in word cards, the lack of interest and then resentment made itself known, so I backed off. I tested the waters of his interest and readiness many times between the ages of 3 - 6, but he just wasn’t interested. He began to read during that period, but his interest was lukewarm. Now he is 8 and his reading ability astounds me. Not because it is much above grade level (if he were in school), but because his large reading and comprehension vocabulary grows so rapidly with no effort on anyone’s part. He recently read through a set of Dolch word cards that he had never seen before, and knew every one, even though those words have never been introduced to him. He has never been given any of those cute little vowel rules that are supposed to help you unlock words. I just can’t get over the miracle of his ability (and my daughter’s , too) to learn new words with no one teaching him! My teacher training dies hard, I guess. I thought that “I” would have to present all new thoughts, words, and concepts to him and then he would learn them. What a burden has fallen away as I come to understand that he will determine the timing and direction of his education, and my part is to provide him with an environment rich in opportunity, love, and acceptance..
SELF-TAUGHT READERS
From Pennsylvania:…My husband spent 12 years in school, received a high school diploma, and was not able to read. As an adult and while serving in the navy, he taught himself how to read and spell. He is now quite proficient. My husband and I are in complete agreement with your efforts…
Doug Anderson, San Francisco CA , writes:…When I had just turned four my sister would read to me; she was seven. Sometimes in the middle of a story she would have to go to bed for school the next day. I was extremely curious to find out how the fairy tale ended, so I asked her if she would teach me to read. She taught me prefixes and suffixes and how to use a child’s dictionary. I would try to read to her an hour a day and she would help me with mistakes and show me how words were pronounced. When she read to me I had always asked her the meaning of words. Two weeks after I had asked her to teach me I was reading by myself. I didn’t learn the alphabet, but I had a subconscious acquaintance with it from using the dictionary.
When I went to school, I had Dick and Jane sitting in front of me. Mr. Holt, if some teacher took you at your present age and experience, sat you in a desk and forced you to read Dick and Jane for countless months, what would be your reaction? My ability to read was extinguished…
…When I joined the service, I started reading again and now have a library of my own…
HUCK FINN, GENIUS READER
Nancy Wallace wrote:…When our family read TOM SAWYER and HUCK FINN, something wonderful struck me. Even though Tom skips school all the time, he has the Robin Hood stories memorized and is constantly reading adventure books like THE ARABIAN NIGHTS that most kids “can’t” read today! And when Huck Finn is adopted by the widow and sent to school, he learns to read “anything” fluently in less than three months. These days it’s supposed to take at least 8 years to learn all the skills necessary in order to read and even then a good number of the kids don’t make it. Oh, well. I don’t suppose school teachers have much time to read books like TOM SAWYER these days -they’re too busy getting their M.A.’s…
SCHOOL DISCOVERS READING!
From a newsletter of a Pennsylvania school district:…The silence is deafening! Every morning throughout the district teachers, students, principals and office personnel start the day by reading a book or magazine for 10 or 20 minutes. The mandatory reading period is part of SSR (Sustained Silent Reading), a new program designed to encourage students to read for pleasure. Although SSR is being practiced in several other communities, this is one of the few districts to have the program in effect system-wide, kindergarten through high school. The reading period is usually scheduled at the beginning of the day during an activity period. Doing homework is forbidden. Students, teachers and parents are enthusiastic about SSR. “I’m really hooked,” said one student. “I used only to read my homework assignments. I never had time for pleasure reading. Now I really look forward to SSR time. I hate to quit when the time is up.”
Apparently SSR is contagious! One parent commented, “My son’s new habit has rubbed off on me. Now as soon as the kids leave for school in the morning I sit down with a second cup of coffee for a half hour of pleasant reading.” Try it: you may like it…
[JH:] Imagine what might happen if these schools were to try the earth-shaking experiment of telling their students that they could read “as much as they wanted”. A revolution! But this is exactly what can and does happen in most home schools. After I appeared with him on a Boston TV show, I wrote the following letter to Dr. Gregory Anrig, the Mass. Commissioner of Education:
…Enjoyed our brief meeting at that rather chaotic TV show. Too many people for such a short time. I believe I can suggest, in only five words, a program that 1) will substantially improve student achievement in both urban and non-urban schools throughout the Commonwealth and 2) will not cost any money to put into effect. The five words are Unlimited Undirected Uninterrupted Silent Reading.
In other words, students in schools would be allowed and encouraged to read, for as long as they wanted, materials of their own choosing, without being interrupted by questions and tests and without being compelled to read aloud before their classmates and so run the risk of being humiliated and shamed by their mistakes. Such a program has not often been tried in schools, but where it has been tried, by a handful of teachers brave enough to run risks, it has produced quick and impressive results, often not only in the area of reading as such but in other parts of the curriculum as well.
It would be perhaps interesting and useful to find out how much time our schools allocate to this kind of silent reading by choice. I would be surprised if it was even as much as a half hour per week. It ought to be a minimum of six hours per week - in other words, there ought to be at least six hours in every school week during which this kind of reading would be given priority over all other academic activities.
Let me stress once again that such a program would not only not cost the schools more money but might well save them some of the money now wasted on workbooks, basal readers, etc. One of the many things discovered by people teaching their own children is that when these children are able to read what they want and as much as they want, they routinely read five, ten, or more books a week, and usually more difficult books than their ageªmates are reading in school. Surely the schools can profit from this experience…
I sent a copy of this letter to the chairman of the Boston School Committee and the editors of the two leading local papers. We shall see if anything happens.