Waldorf (study group) Reading

[Deborah]

http://www.waldorflibrary.org/Journa...ingsokolov.pdf

There’s More to Reading than Meets the Eye
By Barbara Sokolov
Originally published in Renewal, Spring 2000, Vol. 9, #1.

In the primary grades, children continue to work on the outer mechanical aspect of reading. Students spend long periods of time reading simplistic texts that correspond to the level of their decoding abilities. Readers and textbooks contain stories and information written with restricted vocabularies and simple sentence structure. There is little to ignite young imaginations, to evoke wonder, or to stimulate appreciation for the beauty and complexity of language.

By the time such students reached my fifth and sixth grade classroom, they were all capable of decoding the words on a page, with varying degrees of fluidity. Some were good readers, but for many of
my students, the words and sentences did not come together into a coherent whole. They had difficulty understanding or remembering what they read. On the surface, these children appeared to be reading, but with such limited comprehension, can it really be called reading?

[LindaCl]

Coool!

I think this is such a fascinating topic. A great article to begin the discussion with too.

[kpb]

sigh.....reading this makes me think back to cog sci course work in college....

the only class that I aced the papers but failed the tests.....what does that mean!?!

back on topic....I find that so many articles based on WaldorfEd philosophies are written so gently, almost nuturing the reader just as a child would be cared for by a teacher or parent....With this said, Barb's piece is borderline common sense for me, and although she writes well, succinctly, and brings to light valid points on abstract and forced versus compassionate and natural, it just makes me want to open up a free form waldorf unschool....make it free for all, bring your own "equipment" (wood, tools, flowers, food, etc) and a group of moms will encourage and energize those kiddies all the live long day....
!!
in a perfect world......oh so much.
(including washing away my harrowing experiences in a catholic school phonics class. . . . I just wanted to make my little doll drawings have rainbow colored hair!

I'm going to dive into my copy of the Kingdom of Childhood and get some quotes on reading out there from Steiner.....

[Deborah]

Ah, I know what you mean about the tone of some waldorf ed articles. But I do think she is pointing to a real problem--that there is so much emphasis on the mechanics of reading that the whole point--enjoying stories--gets lost.

I grew up in a storytelling family. My father told made-up stories, my mother told stories about her family (Russian Jews), her childhood (growing up on a farm in Northern Indiana) and so on. We always had books around. When I learned how to read I got the mechanics in a few days and then proceeded to read everything. I was able to decipher stuff written for grown-ups (although I didn't understand a lot of what it was about) and follow the story lines. I think part of the reason that reading came easily was that I already understood what story is and how narrative structure works. I had literally sucked it up with my mama's milk

All five of us had that same experience. My brothers learned how to read on their own before they started school, my father taught me how to read about half-way through first grade, my sister learned at home during first grade and her little brother learned because his sister was being taught in front of him. But we all became enthusiastic bookworms and we always read way beyond our grade level. Except for a little bit of tutoring on phonics we had nobody working with us on the mechanics of reading at all.

My daughter went to a waldorf school and learned to read a couple of years later than I did, but once she started reading she was fluent and could read on an adult level. Her first real book was the Lord of the Rings (she was in third grade, I think).

I think as a family we have a hereditary talent for reading. But I also think that exposure to stories is an essential for actually enjoying reading.

Hey, anyone else have comments?

[Chalex]

What an eye-openner on 'limiting comprehension'. I had never thought of that. My view was that you want to have books that are age appropiate...not just content wise, but stories that are easily understood to a young child.

I find that my son (2.5) is curious to what letters (symbols) mean. This curiousity cannot be foreign to the nature of small children. I think it's just the way it's (the learning material) presented...
I still remember in kindergarten, sitting on the floor, having to print out A-B-C's on a grid in thick pencils. My hand ached but, somehow I couldn't manage to say 'I can't do this'. ((sigh)) I don't what my son to have to do that...

Now, are they saying all picture type books should be avoided? That you should simply read text? Or does this apply only to children 7-14?

Honestly, is there a reading deficiencies crisis going on in the world?

[Maggieinnh]

I have to say I agree with the text in regards that children can be too young to read and that they are mentally not ready to understand the text, even though they might be able to read it. As Deborah mentioned, and basically reminded me, once I was able to read I remember I was reading some Goethe and Schiller texts as well (just out of curiosity, as I have seen my father read them), but of course I could not understand the meaning of it at such a young age, so age appropriateness is definitely an issue.

I also have to say, that in later years I have noticed from other children, that their reading levels were not nearly as good as most of the kids in my class. So starting to read a year or two earlier does not seem to make any difference in the skill level in later years, it actually might cause problems in later years, although I am not sure about this?

Picture books are actually new to me and I have a bit of a problem with them, as I never had just pure picture books as a child, so I am not sure how to deal with those....I try my best to make the stories up as I go along but I do not feel comfortable with them.

In regards if there is a reading deficiencies crisis going on in the world, I do not think so, there are plenty of children still reading and adults as well,....the best example is the soon to be released Harry Potter book. People are already going crazy about that not yet released book, children are soon to be found everywhere across the world to have their noses buried in that last chapter of the story. I think the world could definitely use some more J. K. Rowling authors, to get people so excited about reading again. I am sure some people used her books as a jump into the deeper world of books and literature!

[Maggieinnh]

Something else that came to my mind regarding why I feel so uncomfortable with picture books is, that I used to read the text, or it was read to me and from there my mind made pictures of the scenes and characters that were involved in the story, not the other way around as picture books suggest.
So there lies probably my problem with picture books.

[kpb]

ahem....sincerest apologies that my last post was so, well, bitchy...it must have been a long day!

I do want to comment on Maggie's concept with picture books....I both agree and disagree with you on that one....i love to make up the stories as we go along...for example, we'll be reading "runaway bunny" or another board book, and we talk about how Jonah loves to climb just like mama bunny likes to climb the mountain....or how we have red flowers in our garden, too, and then we'll go outside and find our red flowers (bergamont)...making it personal, you know? But then again, I completely understand the impact just having words in front of you has....you truly get to make up everything in your noggin as to your own philosophy, or even to aid in the development of said sophism......
so, my question is, with a son who is obsessed with books (more on the end of finding the rhythm and rhyme in the story), what should young (below two years) children be reading?
we have quite a few board books (otherwise they would all be destroyed within seconds with a strong Jonah Kai grasp), but they aren't quite as beautiful as say Peter in Blueberry Land or the Root Children.....even those he just goes for the pictures and points as I try to get in some lyrical account before he turns the page
any ideas to encourage "word" appreciation over "picture" appreciation?
We do, for the record, do many on-the-fly, verbal story telling sessions...and books on tape, too.....
a great one is an Oscar Wilde rendition of The Red Rose....the music accompanying it even impresses my classical composer husband!

l

[kpb]

"Since a combination of words and pictures is more powerful than either alone, the two should be united in children's texts. "

paraphrased from Amos Comenius.......
his book, Picture for the World of the Senses is stoking some interest in us now....I'm half tempted to relearn latin so as to make a modern edition!

[Deborah]

Teaching Our Children to Write, Read, and Spell
Susan Johnson, M.D.
Dr. Susan Johnson makes the case for an integrated approach to the teaching of reading. Please also see her web site www.youandyourchild.com
http://www.waldorflibrary.org/Journa...writespell.pdf

from page three:

If we push children to read before they have developed bilateral integration and before they have developed the reading centers in both their right and left brain, they will have to compensate by doing all their reading using only the right brain and therefore only using sight memory. It takes a lot of mental effort to read long words using only sight memory. Words like “FRIEND, FIND, and FOUND’’ as well as ‘’FILLED, FILED, and FLOOD’’, will all look the same. Children who are reading using only their right hemisphere i.e. sight memory) often are exhausted after reading just a few paragraphs, and can only parrot back words in a sentence by memory. In addition, their minds are busy deciphering each word and therefore are not free to create the actual scenes from the words they are reading. This limits their overall comprehension. These are the children who plagiarize or copy word by word from a book when they are doing a report. They can only recall the exact ords they read and can’t summarize or comprehend ideas very easily. These hildren who are reading from their right brains also have tremendous difficulty spelling, since they aren’t paying attention to the individual letters and sounds in the words.

[AngelBee]

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