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Bethany
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| Posted: Oct 28 2008 at 11:36am | IP Logged
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My oldest, who turned 6 in June and has never attended any type of school, is seriously resisting any efforts to teach her to read or write. She's very bright and has always loved to be read to aloud. I've always been very relaxed and have not overly pressured her to do "school work" but I'm not sure what to do. She loves when I read picture books and chapter books to her. We've been reading all the Seredipity American history book and she could listen to Little House books on CD all day of I let her. She would love for me to read to her all day also.
She knows her letter sounds and can read most 3 letter words(with much groaning) and some 4 letter words, but if am reading a picture book and I ask her to read a word I know she can read, she gets upset. I've talked to her twice about this and she says she's afraid I won't read to here anymore once she can read. I've assured her that won't happen (she has three younger sisters), but it hasn't seemed to help.
I started with Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons and I found that a little boring myself. Then we used Little Stories for Little Folks and that seems OK.
We recently moved and when I pulled out some writing and reading for her to practice she was very resistent. I haven't pushed it, but sometimes wonder if I should. Such self doubts  . I'm really OK if she reads later but not sure if my husband will be.
I guess I'm frustrated because I see no reason why she shouldn't be reading. I looked over the Reading Rescue 1-2-3 website and none of the indicators they gave for delayed reading applied to her. I should also say that she did not speak at all until she was a little over 2, but then she immediatley stated speaking in sentences. She can be quite meticulous and a perfectionist so we just attributed that to her wanting to do it "right" the first time.
I don't even know what I'm asking  . I guess I wonder if I should require her to spend a certain amount of time each day practicing her reading and writing or should I be more relaxed and just wait till she seems more interested?
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Bethany
Wife to Mike, Mommy to Amelia (6/02), Sarah (10/03), Martha Grace (10/05), Rebecca Anne (12/07), Laura Catherine (3/10) and Reed Michael 7/4/14.
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ALmom
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| Posted: Oct 28 2008 at 1:18pm | IP Logged
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Bethany:
Only you and your husband can ultimately make the decision about whether you need to push a tad for the child to gain confidence or back off and keep it relaxed to allow her to warm up to the idea. Since you know your child, this has to be your prayerful call. I can only throw out a variety of ideas that have worked for us - and will add that only 2 of mine were early readers - ie before 9 or 10.
It sounds like your child is adept at the phonics and you said that Little Stories Worked okay. The stories are a bit boring, but if the whole lesson is viewed as phonics as opposed to reading, then maybe it is just the right amount of reinforcement that allows her to keep moving forward while you keep reading aloud. There are some other phonics readers out there : Little Angle Readers, Sing, Spell, Read and Write readers (I don't know about the content of the newer readers, the older ones were simple, silly stories with nothing objectionable in them). What other things do you do for school, if any (not that they are required). If you do even one simple worktext (ie phonics or spelling or such), practice the reading with directions. If not then use grocery lists, chore instructions, game instructions, have her cook with you and read some of the words of the recipe instructions, anything that connects reading with a reason why she might want to do it herself. This assumes that she is not resistant to a little of this here and there. I don't think it is worth a fight at 6, but that is just my opinion colored by my experience with my children. I wouldn't push but see what happens as things come up in real living.
I would not use the read alouds to try and teach something else. She cherishes that time with you, it is a bonding time that should be enjoyable. She may do a lot of figuring out on her own without saying a word but just watching. You'd be surprised about what takes place when you are unaware. Make sure your read aloud is a routine of the day - we did ours as night reading or even family read alouds so that it is obvious that you are never too old for a read aloud (ie dh and I both part of the read aloud).
Pick some phonetic read alouds sometimes, like Dr. Seus. Don't use it to teach, but the repetition will teach itself.
If you want to reinforce phonics, you can play phonics games like go fish (using phonics sounds) and get one of those small spiral bound notebooks. Cut it in thirds - with the first part having different single consonent sounds, the middle having single vowel sounds, and the last having single letter consonent sounds. Later, you can add in occassional consonent blends and digraphs (ie sh, ch, etc.) as these sounds are introduced. Flip through the chart sounding out the words - some will be real words, some will be nonsense words. I always laughed at the ones that were nonsense words as I said them and said, Oh that one isn't a real word, but if it was, this is how it would be pronounced.
You can do something similiar with magnet letters, or wooden letters or others. We made our own "movable alphabet" and we used that for initial spelling work since mine hated to have any kind of writing implement in hand. You can also spell or form letters in a box of cornmeal, make letters using playdough, etc. Keep it fun and short, where your child is sucessful!
I would, I think, capitalize on her responsiveness to phonics and move in that way since that is the course of least resistance. Anything that you can do to make a certain amount self checking so that she can work on it on her own without you looking over her shoulder or asking her to say or respond. One of my children is the type that stands back, observes but is such a perfectionist that he hates for anyone to be around when he is learning (including the teacher). Now, we couldn't let that happen exclusively but anything that allowed him to practice and being very sensitive about when I asked for output went a long way. We gently worked from where he was to gradually perfecting the idea - ie get him to the point that mistakes are not the end of the world, though doing your best is important. He will still tend to go off and practice on his own before doing something with a group, but he no longer bristles when I ask him to answer a question and he will allow at least some of his siblings in the room when I work with him.
Oh, we have done some fun games that involve a modified scrabble. One has words that can be covered and pictures. We have that available and it can be used with and without a timer. Once they have a few words and the ability to look up words in the dictionary, they get to join the family scrabble game on their own team if they want. (We modify the rules to allow dictionary use as long as it isn't your turn - and the youngest get priority for the dictionary). I have been known to help, too and we compare total scores - ie our family scored x last week, wow, we scored a lot more this week.
A lot of times when there is resistance to reading, there is some good reason for it. Our boys are all farsighted so close work was a strain until they were older than 10. All of my children except one had eye muscle problems and vision therapy so we were dealing with some things you don't sound like you are encountering. Still, I think waiting allows their eyes to develop more normally. Some of ours do not cross the midline so we have had to do some therapy and that got first place over reading instruction. We've also had to do a lot of writing remediation - a lot of stuff recommended by Montessori preschool (3 - 6) is great for developing the writing muscles and the eye-hand integration necessary. Knobbed puzzles, spooning, tweezers, sorting, etc., cutting. One of my favorite activities are the various insets (really like stencils but easier for young children - or less coordinated children- to use. That one thing propelled my writing resistant children forward, much more quickly than I anticipated. All of these things are perfectly appropriate for a child at the verge of writing and reading.
I'd also like to say that there is no panic about waiting. I've come to realize that children, barring a physical/learning disability, learn to read no matter what you do. I know that sounds almost cavalier. But let me share with you what happened with one of ours. I felt so guilty because I wasn't working much with this child. We did therapy early to correct the eyes, but knew we'd have to do it again when he was older. In the meantime, I was focusing on my older children who were closer to 10 and not reading. That was the priority - and an even older child who we discovered got sick to her stomach after 20 minutes of close work (she was the one who taught herself to read very early). I did read alouds (the one constant in our life) but felt so bad that I was neglecting the training of this guy. Well, one night at read aloud, all the other children were excited about this child reading. I didn't believe them, tested him and sure enough, he was reading. He taught himself to read from our nighttime read aloud (The Hobbit series) by asking various children from time to time what a particular word was. Crazily, I tried to go back and teach him phonics and he was bored with those baby readers - so we had to take a different path and did a phonetic spelling program and skipped the readers. I still have a tendency to worry and panic when things aren't progressing as I think - but somehow we all end up fine in the end.
Oh, and all of my children who were not reading at all at 9 or barely, are now reading and reading and reading and at or above grade level. One of my early readers (both early readers taught themselves, but my oldest had more help from me since she was my only at the time) still reads a lot but mostly science, the other early reader does fine but doesn't read unless she has to. All my late readers show clear signs of loving to read and being life-long readers for pleasure and information.
Janet
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Kathryn UK
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| Posted: Oct 28 2008 at 2:06pm | IP Logged
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At six I would back right off. It sounds to me as though there is currently a mismatch between her educational readiness and her emotional readiness. All the basics of reading are in place, and when she is ready I suspect she will take off with reading with very little more work. If you push it now, learning to read is going to be painful for both of you, and I doubt you will gain anything in the long run.
I have learned the hard way after doing battle with a perfectionist - reading wasn't too bad, but we had terrible struggles over maths because she couldn't handle getting something wrong. I made the mistake of thinking that because she *could* do something, that she *should* be doing it. With hindsight I can see that she needed to take things a little slower and stay within her comfort zone.
Your dd loves books, she loves to be read to, and she knows what she needs to know to start reading. When she decides she wants to read - and she will! - there will be no stopping her 
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Kathryn
Dh Michael,  Rachel(3/95) Hannah(8/98) Naomi(6/06)  (11/07)
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LLMom
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| Posted: Oct 31 2008 at 10:10am | IP Logged
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I too would back off. You want her to love reading, not be stressed about it. If dh worries, try to remind him that all children learn to walk and talk at different ages and reading is the same.
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Lisa
For veteran & former homeschool moms
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jenk
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| Posted: Oct 31 2008 at 8:29pm | IP Logged
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Another vote for backing off. My son JUST recently started really reading- he'll be 8 in January. He knew letter sounds at 4 so we started phonics. He resisted (REALLY resisted  ) so I backed off and revisited it on at least an annual basis (and worried the entire time). Most of my concerns were that my husband would balk or my MIL would ask him to read- she's worked in the Catholic school system for years- and then there'd be "trouble". Now that he's reading on his own and is really ready, he's progressing quickly without the fuss.
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Jen
with 2 boys, 14 and 8, and a girl expected 1/09
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4Real Forums : Language Arts Come Alive
Topic: Help please!
