Wednesday 31 October 2012

Joseph starts to read

The other day Joseph was playing on my iPad and called me over asking "Mummy how do I do a 'y'?" I glanced down at the iPad where he had already typed 'Anb' and he told me that he wanted to search for the 'Andy's Wild Adventures' game that he sometimes plays online. Ok so he was busily typing into Twitter, but he was having a go nonetheless! Joseph is learning to read and learning to spell out words not because I have 'taught' him, but because he has an interest and motivation to do so. He learns by observation and questioning. When he drew a dinosaur a few weeks ago he asked "Mummy how do I do a 'd'?" and so I showed him. I didn't push him to spell out the rest of the word, he simply wanted to write a 'd' next to his dinosaur! Its really important to me that Joseph knows he can ask questions without being given a lot of information he either doesn't need or isn't ready for, and without being bombarded with questions himself. I wouldn't want to put him off asking questions, not when this is such a useful tool for him to make discoveries.

When we read books together Joseph is showing a growing ability to sound out words and he recently read the 'track' on the front of a Tracker bar! Its ironic that his reading skills seem to have taken a leap at the very time he would have been starting school! No doubt if he had gone to school the credit for these growing abilities would have been attributed to either the school, the teacher or a phonics programme, but Joseph knows that he is learning for himself by looking around at the world and asking questions. He is empowered.

When as a baby Joseph started speaking, Oliver and I made sense of what he was communicating, responded and put his language into a context. We spoke to him and sang to him about anything and everything; he joyfully made sounds and we joyfully listened and responded. It didn't cross my mind to try and 'teach' him how to speak, I knew that when he was ready he would! Every sound he made was beautiful to me, regardless of how well constructed it was or how much sense it made and I didn't for a moment consider correcting him over and over again until he was trained to use the right sounds for the right words! Hearing and observing the unfolding language of all three boys has been wonderful and exciting. I hope that we'll feel the same as they all learn to read.

So here is Joseph aged 4 showing an interest in words, and a readiness to learn to read and write them. Rather than push full-steam ahead into a phonics programme or begin practising cursive writing, I'm simply going to allow this new found skill to unfold naturally in its own way and own time. I'll keep him surrounded with sounds and printed words in any form that may be interesting to him; posters, books, magazines, road signs, billboards and shop signs to name a few, making sure that I am always on hand to answer his questions and point out things that I think may interest him. Meanwhile, I'll allow him to persue the activities that feed his motivation to learn to read, for example when watching his favourite T.V programmes Joseph is keen to know what the title of the episode is at it flashes up at the beginning. He also likes to use the Internet to search for things he is interested in and will break down the words he wants me to type into syllables, for example "Mummy can you write Di-no--saur?" The beginning of this post demonstrates how eager he already is to do this for himself! I think if my sons are going to learn to read and write I need to allow them to find a genuine motivation to do so, and I'm not so sure that Biff, Chip and Kipper or the prestige of reaching the next level of the reading scheme would provide this motivation in the longer term. I recently met a mum who took her children out of school around a year ago and now home educates. She said that her son learned to read with no bother, but on finishing the reading scheme didn't feel that he needed to read anymore because he had "done it!" I hope now he has a chance to see that reading can be something pleasurable, useful and rewarding and not just a thing we are required to do to jump through hoops.

While Joseph's reading and writing skills are busy emerging in the background, he continues to engage in a whole range of other activities that capture his interest and imagination. It's really important to me that value judgements are not made about the relative importance of the activities Joseph enjoys. The idea that anyone would give him the sense that the things he enjoys and finds fascinating are less important than learning to read and write seems sad at best and cruel at worst to me. So while he is busy....

building bridges across the living room....

riding horses....

testing out his culinary skills....

building a train track to connect his toys together....

turning a tree stump into a pirate ship and going fishing with sticks....

finding ingenious ways to make cars look like they have smoking wheels....
building houses....
taking weird and wonderful photos of himself using my iPad....

Making what he calls "Zig Zag Goos" by burrowing tunnels under the living room rugs....

....and a whole range of other activites he is constantly engaging in, Joseph is learning, and no doubt accessing a whole range of skills that will prepare him for the task of reading and writing.

Everything Joseph does is of value to him, I believe that absolutely and as a result there is no rush to read. Just as happened when he learned to speak, everything is unfolding perfectly....in its own way and its own time.

A few links for anyone who is interested.

A recent study found that there was no difference in reading ability at age 11 between children who received reading instruction at age 5 compared with those who received it aged 7. In fact, those who received instruction at 7 showed better reading comprehension later on. For the abstract of this study click here.

To read an article on the above research click here.

For an article discussing the benefits of learning to read later click here.

For an article looking at brain-based developmental differences between boys and girls which discusses why boys in particular may struggle with early formal instruction in writing click here.

 

2 comments:

  1. This comment has been removed by the author.

    ReplyDelete
  2. This comment has been removed by the author.

    ReplyDelete