Some kids will figure out reading with little instruction. Some (I am guessing most) will not. You should start the ball rolling either way. Offer as much help as the child needs to continue making progress. It's that simple. Do not fall into the trap of an idea that there is anything wrong with providing a child with assistance and instruction in learning to read.
I've read some research that estimates about 40% (of the school population) learns to read on their own, 50% benefits from explicit instruction and about 10% needs really intensive instruction.
I've seen several variations of this statistic over the years, but never an attribution. I suspect it's not from an actual study since the number who supposedly benefit from "explicit instruction" is different every time I see the stat. Sometimes it's 40%, sometimes 20%, etc.
While it's nice to see someone with school credentials who has a positive view of allowing children to read in their own time, I don't like the idea of parents starting to worry the day a child hits a certain age (even 8 or 9) and is not reading independently. Again, see the Peter Gray article. And this: http://sandradodd.com/r/threereaders . There are additional links at the bottom for other reading stories.
The Peter Gray article cites very anecdotal research, as does the Sandra Dodd page. However, I can say that I worked as a research assistant at a major university for several years, and most reading research is flawed anyway. It's way too hard to isolate all the factors that go into each child's literacy experience in the world.
In any case, I wanted to clarify that I really don't think it's necessary to do much of anything "instructional" before 8 or 9. Just read and write in your daily life and provide opportunities for your kids to engage in that to the degree that they want to. However, as someone who has worked almost exclusively with the kids who don't, and probably won't ever learn to read on their own, because of a neurologically-based reading disability, I can say that if you have a feeling there is something wrong with the way your child is processing text or language, it would be good to start to investigate it at around 8 or 9 and maybe get some help.
Also, English is a phonetic language (as quirky as some of our spelling conventions are). Languages such as Chinese are not phonetic (to read, at least). So, everybody who is reading English is using phonics, whether it's such an automatic process in your head that you aren't aware of it, or you slowly sound out words.
The Peter Gray article cites very anecdotal research, as does the Sandra Dodd page. However, I can say that I worked as a research assistant at a major university for several years, and most reading research is flawed anyway. It's way too hard to isolate all the factors that go into each child's literacy experience in the world.
We're in complete agreement here. I specifically said that the Gray article and Dodd page cite anecdotal evidence. But frankly, this anecdotal evidence--because it doesn't make any sweeping claims--may be the best evidence we have of how people can learn to read outside of schools. And the flawed reading research churned out by universities-- because it is considered better than anecdotal evidence and because the colleges of education must know more than everyone else--is used to justify all kinds of programs and interventions that may not be necessary, and may even be harmful. Frank Smith, author of Reading Without Nonsense (published by Columbia Teachers College Press, incidentally) and Peter Gray are two academics who have challenged the schools of education and their skewed emphasis on isolated phonics work.
While I think it's great to hear someone with reading specialist credentials endorse a relaxed approach to early reading, I do think that neurologically-based reading disorders are hugely overdiagnosed. I'm not going to write a dissertation about that here, nor challenge any parent's experience about what his or her own child needs. At the same time, we simply can't say that children who can't read by eight or nine (or whatever magic age) will likely never learn to read on their own, because we don't know how these children would have developed had they not been in school. Might "early intervention" actually interfere with a person's ability to learn to read? I think it's quite possible, and that we shouldn't assume that early intervention can't hurt. Why are we unwilling to acknowledge that intervention might cause harm, at least in some cases? Frank Smith and John Holt acknowledged this possibility. If Sandra Dodd's daughter, who became a fluent reader at age eleven, had been the recipient of an "intervention" at age eight or nine, would she be a great reader today? We can't say.
My experience is that my child who is learning to read "later" is wired very, very differently from her older brother. If she were in school, she would certainly be subjected to an intensive phonics-based approach that I'm convinced would be the total opposite of what she needs.
I would argue that "assistance" and "instruction" are often two very different things.
PGTlatte, I recall from your previous posts that you're pretty adamantly anti-unschooling. I think it's important to note that OP specifically indicated an interest in how children might learn to read on their own.
This may seem weird, but my oldest was taught to read in school. Now we are going to homeschool and I have a kindy kid. I keep reading to let him learn to read on his own. How does that happen? I mean I know reading TO him helps a TON...but do you do sight words and phonics and such too? Or do kids just 'get it' somehow? I remember being frustrated a lot while my oldest learned.
This is what she asked - the part I bolded. She has seen suggestions to let him learn on his own. I stand by what I said - it is not a good thing to fall into the idea that it is in any way harmful to explicitly teach reading. If someone chooses to unschool - fine, whatever, your kid. BUT I have seen mothers literally beside themselves over their kid not picking up on reading on their own, by age ten or so, with their hands mentally tied behind their backs, because they had thoroughly bought into the idea that it would be harmful to help their kid with explicit reading instruction.
If someone wants to unschool, fine, research it, and do it. BUT as a new homeschooler, do not fall into thinking that it is the de facto way homeschoolers address reading with their kids. Many of us explicitly teach reading.
This may seem weird, but my oldest was taught to read in school. Now we are going to homeschool and I have a kindy kid. I keep reading to let him learn to read on his own. How does that happen? I mean I know reading TO him helps a TON...but do you do sight words and phonics and such too? Or do kids just 'get it' somehow? I remember being frustrated a lot while my oldest learned.
The original post. She wanted to know how reading to them leads to reading on his own, whether or not others might help with "phonics" and word recognition, or whether they can learn to read without "sight words and phonics".
Apparently she has had a frustrating experience with "explicit reading instruction" with her oldest and seems to want to try something a bit different, and bit less "schoolish" and academic possibly, and she wants to know how this approach looks in other HOMESCHOOLING families. Doesn't sound like she is locked into an "unschooling" approach at all. Doesn't sound like she is afraid of a more explicit approach, just that she wants to try something different.
OP, please clarify if I am right?
So, let's move past the issues of not reading at 10 or 11 or whatever. This issue might be a relevant tangent, but it is clearly NOT the main issue here.
I'm really not fond of acting based on fear of what happens if I don't. There are no red flags here, nothing to suggest that fear might have some basis in truth for her child. Differing opinions and experiences, yes. Very helpful.
I apologize for helping to derail the conversation. I'm working on not getting so fired up every time someone mentions the magic age at which parents should worry their kid can't read. This is not the place for that debate, and I hope OP gets some of her questions answered.
I hope it is appropriate to say, to the question of, "Or do kids just 'get it' somehow?" that in my experience, yes, kids do just get it, but not always in the manner, or time frame, that one would expect of a child in school.
In regard to the OP:
My child is a very private sort of person so literally one day she woke up and wanted to read something to me--and she did! I was surprised. I really didn't know how far along she was at that point. For her, reading followed writing (which is actually the way Waldorf does it anyway, so it fit very well for us). She loves to write notes and would ask how to spell words and such. I also have been reading aloud to her since she was a small infant, and she has a natural love of reading and books. She also has a great memory, so she easily remembers how to spell and recognize words and patterns. One thing I want to do this year in grade 1 is to focus on spelling as a way to improve her sight-word vocabulary and to further help her with phonics (because some words CAN be very tricky to figure out, and a systematic spelling program will be helpful, I think). I wouldn't worry about reading until age 8, personally. For some children, it may not click until later. Our daughter started recognizing and reading some words before age 2 and then progressed very slowly for a while before she really had a "drive" and the mental infrastructure to want to read more on her own. Our experience was much like Miranda's in her first post--dd asked questions, and we answered them.
I apologize for helping to derail the conversation. I'm working on not getting so fired up every time someone mentions the magic age at which parents should worry their kid can't read. This is not the place for that debate, and I hope OP gets some of her questions answered.
I hope it is appropriate to say, to the question of, "Or do kids just 'get it' somehow?" that in my experience, yes, kids do just get it, but not always in the manner, or time frame, that one would expect of a child in school.
I apologize too. :) The process of learning to read is fascinating and the OP's kindergarten age child is probably exhibiting lots of signs, if you know what to look for. I was a linguist before I was a teacher, and I think part of the problem in schools is that a lot of teachers don't understand language.
The sounds in English as we hear them are sort of blended together....like if you look at an sound wave of someone talking, you won't see "spaces" in between words. However, when we write and read English, we use specific symbols (letters) to represent sounds. Basically, our written language places somewhat artificial boundaries on the sounds. (we would sound like choppy robots if we talked the way we write). Kids learn language by listening and speaking first, so the first step into literacy is when they begin to be able to distinguish or break apart sounds out of a whole spoken word. They do this when rhyming or playing substitution games like that banana-fanna-fo-fanna song....reading nursery rhymes and singing songs is good practice too. This is one of those things you don't really "teach", it just kind of happens. This is called phonemic awareness.
Another step is when kids start realizing that print represents specific words, or print awareness. This happens when they see certain words over and over gain (Stop, exit, their names, etc.), and also when you read the same books over and over again. Again, things that just happen as a course of daily life. That's sometimes called sight words and kids in school are given lists to memorize (bad idea).
The phonics part comes in when they see that not only can a set of symbols represent a spoken word they know, but also that patterns exist. STOP starts with the same symbols as START and START looks almost exactly like STAR. Kids are surrounded by print, especially today with texting, email and the internet being communication tool, so often they just start to observe these patterns on their own, but don't really do anything with them. Books with silly rhymes (Dr. Seuss), and alphabet books (I just read a beautiful one called Alison's Zinnia by Anita Lobel - but there are millions of these) provide a lot of practice with this.
Then when a child is sufficiently motivated - they want to know "how" to read a book or a magazine or a blog or whatever, and they want to do it independently, they will either just put together all those patterns, or it's a prime time to teach them the "code". Here's a link to the basic sounds (so many vowels! Eek!).http://www.antimoon.com/resources/phonchart2008.pdf The kid doesn't have to memorize the IPA transcription, this is more for a parent/teacher reference when you are explaining it. I think this is the part where people get bad flashbacks of chanting a apple ah. I don't think there's any magic program or method to teaching this...if a kid wants or needs some explicit instruction, I would just make a flashcard with each English letter or letter combination (for example s would go on a card and sh would go on another card, ai would go on a card and ay would go on another card) and then play around with building words. I also think some kids just sort of bounce through this step and the "code" clicks all at once for them....sounds like there were some responders to this thread who had that experience themselves or with their own kids.
Next comes fluency, where kids get excited that they know what the words mean and they read more and more and their reading gets better and better. If you want to provide instruction at this point, choose short passages and have them practice reading them over and over again. Bible verses could work well for this, if you are so inclined, or poetry, song lyrics, passages from favorite books, speeches, famous quotes.
That's really just the tip of the iceberg with reading. You aren't really reading unless you comprehend what you read and all of us know that comprehension is a variable factor...I comprehend astrophysics textbooks in a much different way than professional journals in my field or literature that I enjoy. So, it's not like you reach this "peak" of comprehension at some point and then you are a master reader. It's something that ebbs and flows throughout your entire life and depends on your motivation to get through material or your prior exposure to the topic. I think it's helpful to young readers to know this about adults...that we don't always exactly comprehend what we read, have to read it over again, or just put down that book because we didn't enjoy the style.
In my opinion, the place where schools have really gone downhill over the past ten years is the lack of rich content in what they are reading and in the experiences that a lot of kids come to school with. Kids have a far easier time "learning to read" when they know things about the world, when they have listened to stories, observed different kinds of tree leaves in the woods, have become knowledgeable about a hobby, or do real world things like purchase items in stores or farm or volunteer at an animal shelter. We don't have "time" for all that nonsense in school, but homeschoolers sure do!
So, lady1297, keep doing what you're doing, and don't worry about getting to formal with the other parts. I hope your experience with this child will be much less frustrating than with your first.
Hope my explanation was somewhat helpful and not too wordy.
My self-taught dd1 really did seem to "just get it".
Of course, there must have been a progression, but besides my knowing that she understood that written words stood for spoken words, I was not aware of any of it. She did discover that she had to slow down and sound out some words, which was infinitely frustrating for her. When she asked what a word was I would ask if she wanted me to sound it out for her (with a finger following a word) or just tell her what it was--I'd say that ended up being about half the time.
Her frustration with sounding words out (instead of recognizing them--or recognizing a set of letters and guessing) peaked until we started reading some simple Spanish books--always something we have loved to do together. She loves that Spanish sounds are nearly always the same with very, very few irregularities. Her confidence grew so fast, and it helped her with her English words as well. She used to get exasperated and not read anything for days and weeks until this point.
Also, even though we did no formal instruction, she picked up reading right "on schedule"--not early and not late, neither precocious nor delayed.
I think a lot of kids can teach themselves how to read....its just that you will have to wait for their natural timing and a lot of people (OMG! The schools do this in K!) have troubles with doing this. Not everybody....but it is hard when everyone else is doing it earlier.
My daughter absolutely refused to learn to read. Finally, I decided that she would probably eventually either #1 learn on her own or #2, ask for help.
She learned to read on her own at 7...now....almost exactly a year later, she's reading somewhere between a 5th-7th grade level. And, no, we didn't do phonics or anything like that. We played a few sight word games-- but she seemed to have already figured those out on her own, too.
Her brother (who is 6) is starting to read on his own, too. I just say you have to read, read, read and provide lots of books for them. It also helps a lot for them to have something they REALLY want to read.
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