Homeschooling a 6year old has become a challenge

[mamamoogs]

I posted something similiar about 6 months or so ago, my 6 yr old is very in interested in learning or myabe being taught anything by me, she doesnt read yet and hates any thing that she thinks she  might be learning from.... we have several on line prgrams( reading eggs, click and kids starfall and many more and few math programs also it is like pulling teeth to get her on them and then when i try to read to her she gets mad also, she is the only child her age not reading in her bible class,  ahe states it doesnt bother her, i imagine it does though.  I am not giving up we are a homeschool family and i am determined to make this work. please any advice you could throw at me i would appreciate it ,

i got so annoyed hearing my MOM state she should be reading out her in school, ect and then in hearing it puts a bit of doubt in my head, and I ask myself am I doing that right thing?

ps we are more of an unschooling household, we do not use any set curriculum we have some workbooks and a whole line of bob  readers, and hooked on phonics but my DD doesnt seem to bne interested in any of these things.  She is very big on art loves to draw color use glue paste things cut things out and she loves to ride her bike and scooter but that is as far as her interests go right about now.  thanks for reading :)

[laohaire]

A shot in the dark, but someone here recomomended Right Brained Kids in a Left Brained World and I'm reading it right now.

Through that lens, I wonder if your child is resisting reading because the method is not working for her, or perhaps she is indeed not ready yet.

I am a left-brained mother of a whole-brained or right-brained (not sure which) 5 year old. Naturally I have been approaching reading from a phonics perspective, which I still believe is better than the "whole language" approach because it allows you to decode and encode rather than just guess. But it's only better if the child in question is able to learn it. Many right-brained children have difficulty with it on multiple levels; it may be very difficult or impossible for them to "hear" the phenomes broken up, it may be difficult for them to look at each letter in sequence from left to right (they are very spatially aware but not see the world from left to right, so to speak), etc.

It seems that right-brained children may learn to read later than their left-brained counterparts, and the book implies that it may take up to 3rd grade (which I guess is age 8 for the rest of us) for the skill to really come together if there are no underlying problems like dyslexia or visual issues. Of course that doesn't answer a mother's natural question: how do we KNOW there's no issues that we need to address now? Well, on that, you might read the book and see if it really fits your daughter; if so, you might be reassured.

Right brained children tend to be perfectionistic, and they hate to fail. So if she is not ready to learn yet or if she is being taught something she just can't process (such as maybe phonics), she will refuse to do it rather than struggle with something that just doesn't make sense to her.

My 5 year old is not reading yet, but happily for me, she loves being read to and even enjoys working on reading and writing. Not because I'm some genius homeschooler but just because I don't have much of a schedule and I'm lazy, she comes to me with the request to work on it rather than the other way around. I've noticed that she has a great deal of internal motivation, as does my husband - however, both my daughter and husband need that motivation to come from within. External pressure (even just "perceived" pressure) crushes their motivation. So by sheer luck, I think it worked really well for us that I don't have a set "let's sit down at X o'clock and spend 2 hours homeschooling" but seem to be unschooling for now (I don't want to do this forever though).

So, this may just be my bias since that's what I'm reading and thinking about, but my two cents would be to get the book and to back off on reading in any form for a while and let her recover. Also, if she doesn't like to be read to, can you think of why? Do you ask her to do anything while you read, like try to read a common word through the book? If you do, perhaps take a break, and then when you start again, don't ask her to do anything, and tell her upfront you won't: "Let's read a story! I'm going to read it to you and you don't have to do anything at all, just listen." And even later, maybe try some recommendations on reading approach from the book - the author is always careful to take the pressure off his right-brained tutors, and they seem to perform better and open themselves more to learning as a result.

[mamamoogs]

great advice.. thanks i will check the book out... But i have to say everyone I talk to says to back off for now , but this whole  i am not intereste din learning started back in jan 2010 so that is when we took on the unschool approach so now a year later i was hoping she would be ready to atleast try but she gets annoyed and stomps off, i am totally clueless what out next step she be, but that book may be a start... thanks!

[bandgeek]

If you are determined to make homeschooling work and don't foresee having to enter her in public school anytime soon, I would just let it go and let her do it when she's ready. I do push my soon to be 6 year old, but I also might have to enroll him in school next year and I don't want him to be behind.  If I knew I could homeschool for the next 3-5 years I would just let him play all day! LOL  If she's not going to be entering school, there's really no reason she HAS to read right now.  She can excel in math, science, social studies, ect just by you reading to HER.  In school it's a different story, because they expect kids to read the material themselves at a certain age and they will quickly fall behind in most subjects if they can't.

[jeteaa]

at 6 yrs old dd1 was not reading and very stubborn about doing anything academic. For various reasons she was in ps 1st gr from sept to the end of dec. I knew we would go back to hsing at the end of the yr or earlier is ps was a disaster... we are hs again as of jan 1. The GOOD thing about ps was that she was forced to TRY to learn to read, and now she can read atleast level 1 books. Just getting over the initial hump of a non reader starting to read was the key for her. Now she feels like she CAN read and is more willing to work at the higher level books. So my advice is to maybe look for outside help such as a tutor, older hs kids etc. In our area hs kids are eligible to use ps resources, so you could look into having your dc in just the reading class at a school.

[Savoir Faire]

Um...yes....this is describing MY 6-year-old girl to a T.

Trying to force a child who REFUSES to read is pretty much useless. I'd go as far to say that pulling teeth from a cat while giving it a nice cold bath would be easier.

I'd give it a bit of time. Perhaps look at a different way-- we actually had very good success with Spell to Read and Write....turns out my daughter is definitely a whole-word child.

Originally Posted by laohaire 

A shot in the dark, but someone here recomomended Right Brained Kids in a Left Brained World and I'm reading it right now.

Through that lens, I wonder if your child is resisting reading because the method is not working for her, or perhaps she is indeed not ready yet.

I am a left-brained mother of a whole-brained or right-brained (not sure which) 5 year old. Naturally I have been approaching reading from a phonics perspective, which I still believe is better than the "whole language" approach because it allows you to decode and encode rather than just guess. But it's only better if the child in question is able to learn it. Many right-brained children have difficulty with it on multiple levels; it may be very difficult or impossible for them to "hear" the phenomes broken up, it may be difficult for them to look at each letter in sequence from left to right (they are very spatially aware but not see the world from left to right, so to speak), etc.

It seems that right-brained children may learn to read later than their left-brained counterparts, and the book implies that it may take up to 3rd grade (which I guess is age 8 for the rest of us) for the skill to really come together if there are no underlying problems like dyslexia or visual issues. Of course that doesn't answer a mother's natural question: how do we KNOW there's no issues that we need to address now? Well, on that, you might read the book and see if it really fits your daughter; if so, you might be reassured.

Right brained children tend to be perfectionistic, and they hate to fail. So if she is not ready to learn yet or if she is being taught something she just can't process (such as maybe phonics), she will refuse to do it rather than struggle with something that just doesn't make sense to her.

My 5 year old is not reading yet, but happily for me, she loves being read to and even enjoys working on reading and writing. Not because I'm some genius homeschooler but just because I don't have much of a schedule and I'm lazy, she comes to me with the request to work on it rather than the other way around. I've noticed that she has a great deal of internal motivation, as does my husband - however, both my daughter and husband need that motivation to come from within. External pressure (even just "perceived" pressure) crushes their motivation. So by sheer luck, I think it worked really well for us that I don't have a set "let's sit down at X o'clock and spend 2 hours homeschooling" but seem to be unschooling for now (I don't want to do this forever though).

So, this may just be my bias since that's what I'm reading and thinking about, but my two cents would be to get the book and to back off on reading in any form for a while and let her recover. Also, if she doesn't like to be read to, can you think of why? Do you ask her to do anything while you read, like try to read a common word through the book? If you do, perhaps take a break, and then when you start again, don't ask her to do anything, and tell her upfront you won't: "Let's read a story! I'm going to read it to you and you don't have to do anything at all, just listen." And even later, maybe try some recommendations on reading approach from the book - the author is always careful to take the pressure off his right-brained tutors, and they seem to perform better and open themselves more to learning as a result.

[Mere]

I will just throw this out there; I don't know if it applies to your child.  However, my ds1 (6.5) is a very strong-willed child and will always test/refuse/pitch a fit about doing anything new.  I pick my battles carefully with him, but when I do decide that there is something we need to focus on then I have to be 100% committed to getting past his refusal/testing phase.  Once we get past it, it's generally smooth sailing. 

Last year I chose reading as our focus, and that's the only 'structured' thing we did.  We did it every day at roughly the same time, and never for more than 10 minutes.  Once he accepted that activity into his routine, he did well at it and is now a decent reader. 

[mamamoogs]

all great advice i will try it all :) hopefully we get something to work soon....

[bobandjess99]

It's a lot harder stay strong about homeschooling when you have little support when your kid isn't the prodigy who is super talented at something, or super ahead of his peers, etc.  And reading is what truly seems to be *THE* measuring stuck for young kids, so when you have a naturally later reader, it sort of stinks.  It's so much easier when you can deflect concerns with early accomplishments rather than trying to defend why it's okay that your child is "behind".   

There are a lot of ways I counter the criticism, depending on who it is, the relationship involved, how grumpy I am, etc. Lately I've been using "The curriculum we are using does not focus on reading until the next unit, right now she is doing really well in math though and is way above her age level, look, she can add 2 digit numbers............"   

Another tactic is just to simply let them know it's none of their business.  "I'm very happy with her progress, and am not interested in you opinions thanks".

Sometimes a more descriptive statement about our beliefs "Actually, forcing a kid to read too early can have detrimental effects, and we are waiting for certain brain development to happen before reading.  She really loves books though, and we read together every day." 

My dd is also 6, and we are focusing a lot on art, music, physical activity, playing, and real life appllications like cooking, cleaning, and learning about the world through daily activities such as going to the library and grocery shopping, using the computer,  visiting friends and going to classes.  She also refuses to do anything she doesn't want to, and i don't force it.  (Well, ok, the cleaning i do, lol)

A day of cutting, pasting and drawing and riding a scooter would be a full day here at bobandjess99's homeschool :)

[mamamoogs]

thanks mamas, I feel much better and now that i am not forcing or trying to trick her into doing lessons etc, our day seems less hectic and  much more relaxed and happy :)