How do Unschoolers learn to read without a curriculum?
This question pops up often.
Sometimes it's because parents have young children and they can't imagine how their child would learn without the step-by-step process of lesson plans. Other times, the question emerges when a child seems to be getting a little older and still isn't gravitating toward reading. Or at least they don't seem to have much interest in it.
This week, let's talk about how this works. We'll come back and talk about the concept of "Late Readers" another time. There's a lot of great information in the Unschooling Guide - Learning to Read
about this, if you're needing the information sooner. Let me just tell you - that Guide is sooo full of awesome resources. If you were going to dig around the internet to find it all, it would take you a while. And if you’re new, you’d miss a lot. But I’ve done all the legwork for you! So, don’t miss that, if you have some questions about reading.
The first thing I want to do, though, is share a quote from John Holt
. Really, I should share this quote on EVERY podcast, just to bring it back to the front of all of our minds. It comes from his book, What Do I Do Monday?
Here’s what he says:
"Let me sum up what I have been saying about learning.
I believe that we learn best when we, not others
, are deciding what we are going to try to learn, and when, and how, and for what reasons or purposes;
when we, not others, are in the end, choosing the people, materials, and experiences from which and with which we will be learning;when we, not others, are judging how easily or quickly or well we are learning, and when we have learned enough;
and above all when we feel the wholeness and openness of the world around us, and our own freedom and power and competence in it."
Then he turns toward us as parents and asks:
" What then can we do about it?
How can we create or help create these conditions for learning?"
Wow. Right? So powerful.
Ok… now specifically to the reading issue.
If you ask unschoolers in online forums or at park days about your child who is either not showing many signs of being interested in reading - or maybe showing NO signs - you’ll hear, “don’t worry about it!” and “they’ll figure it out!”
While they're right, two things are wrong with those responses:
- It doesn’t help a worried parent.
- There really ARE some things you can do (and some specific things to avoid doing!)
I give a lot of practical suggestions in the Unschooling Guide: Learning to Read
but I want us to focus on our own beliefs and thoughts about it first.
Parents want to do what's best for their child. At least the parents I work with do! Unfortunately, many of us don't have a lot of good information on how to help kids with reading. We've been conditioned to believe that "good parents" force their child to learn sounds or memorize words whether or not the child is interested. We think of the school approach as the tried-and-true way to go about this
Unfortunately, as many parents have learned, this can backfire. You can make the "Learn to Read" environment so distasteful that the child wants to avoid it at all costs.
Or worse, believes something is wrong with them because they can’t do what their parent is asking them to do.
In the same way that we can't rush learning to walk or to potty train - we can't rush a brain to learn to read.
You're already on the right path - trying to learn whatever you can so you can support your child. It takes a little time to undo some of the stories we may have in our heads about learning to read and we may need to spend a little time educating ourselves. We have a tendency to move toward what's familiar or what society pushes toward us.
And in the case of learning to read, we may need to reframe some things. Sometimes this can be hard when we get criticism or raised eyebrows from others - especially when we're still learning about it all ourselves and/or our child isn't reading yet.
Remember, as I’m making suggestions or you read various ideas, it’s not unusual to hesitate or to see where that idea isn’t true. But that’s fear jumping in to keep you safe. It wants us to resist any new ideas and tells us that "your child's future is at stake!!!"
When these kinds of dramatics happen in our heads, remind yourself that that's just fear trying to run the show and keep you in your lane.
Sometimes it helps to do a little self-talk,
"I get it. It's scary. But I'm going to set aside my fear right now.