Are You Reading More?

This is a common question directed to  my daughter on a regular basis and happens to be just a tad of a pet peeve to me going right along with another question of "how is school going?" These two questions never fail to irritate me no matter how much I remind myself these questions are not about us, they are about the person doing the questioning. Opinions are always about the person giving and having them, never about the person they have the opinion about. Many times these questions are asked out of my presence as those who know me, know I am quite verbal and rather than deal with my defending of my family, simply ask when I am not around to defend on matters that are really none of their business in the first place or highly inappropriate, and disrespectful of the person being questioned. These questions do not anger me, but the do irritate me and I consider them to be my pet peeves and this is why:

"How is school going?"  is asked out of a place where they think there is only one model of learning and that we should be imitating that model at home. That model being public school, with refusal to acknowledge there are a multitude ways to learn and that learning does not have to be separated into blocks of time. Nor does it have to fit into certain age categories. This is not a question asked out of genuine curiosity, it is a question based out of a place of judgment that they think best and one way is the only way. They have no desire to understand your educational philosophy, how the child is learning or even what they have been truly doing.

 By this question being asked on a regular basis, it has already instilled into the child being asked, that learning is not suppose to be fun. Their reply will reflect this as they more likely will answer......we don't do anything but play video games all day. Well okay so they may play video games a lot, being home and having any waking moment for learning allows for a lot of game play. Yet this is a go to answer because this is what is observed either by the person questioning, or by the child who does not notice all the other details they do.

This does not take into consideration the documentaries watched, the sewing projects, baking, interests on You tube viewed, playing with neighbor friends, interesting family discussions held or writing a letter to sissy. This does not take into consideration the shopping for food, going to interesting places, playing board games, music listened to or going to the library. It leaves so many variables and activities out that are naturally ignored as learning.

More appropriate questions would be:

Have you watched any good movies lately?
Have you watched any interesting documentaries recently?
Have you been doing any baking? Oh? What have you been baking?
What are you interested in right now?
What do you like to do for fun?
What kind of movies do you enjoy?
What do you like about online games?
Have you made anything crafty or done any projects lately?

While there are a ton more appropriate questions you could  ask the interest led child, the point is that they should be questions that spend a little amount of time actually trying to get to know the child. To engage them in open ended interesting conversation. Also more appropriately would be  to engage them in conversation of new interesting things YOU have been learning. By sharing in such a manner, the person who does the questioning is helping to foster a life long learner......far more important than just wanting to know what they have done academically this week.

Are you reading more?

There are several reasons why this question is inappropriate and outright disrespectful. Especially if this then is followed with a comment that one who does not learn to read would then turn out dumb as an adult.

Believe it or not that is called illiteracy for one, not dumb, there have been some highly successful and intelligent adults who were illiterate. Does being able to read open the doors to accelerated learning at your fingertips? certainly! But illiteracy is not the same thing as being dumb. Nor is it appropriate to be telling a child they will turn out dumb if they do not learn to read based off that child's potentially inaccurate answer.

Reading more compared to what?  Since the person asking the question has no clue what so ever about the child's reading ability, then what is the basis of the question in the first place? By what is the question being measured against?

The other issue is a break down in communication with the question, for instance my daughter takes that to mean "Reading More Books"  which in turn her response then becomes "No, not really."

The questioner then assumes she is not able to read based on that reply because the real issue behind that question is missed. The questioner means something totally different then how the child is taking the question to mean. The adult wants to know if they are reading more words,  reading at grade level based on the model of public school. The child is taking the question to mean are they reading many books, which at this point my daughter is not really interested in books so she replies no.

In truth my daughter's ability to read is quite fine and she reads all the time, just not many books.

Her father however is a terrible reader, phonically challenged and a man of simple words. Yet he is not asked how is reading is coming. He is not asked if he knows his phone number or address ( which he doesn't, we have moved so many times he keeps a card in his wallet,  he  does not want to bother to learn it  at this point) He can read, but large words are a struggle and he hates reading for this reason. Yet he is not by any means what you could call a dumb man, he is quite smart in other areas.

Because he is an adult, nobody cares about his reading or spelling..... nope it never comes up in day to day questions. He is never quizzed on his knowledge or lack there of.

He is not alone, many people I am very blessed to know are terrible spellers, weak readers, with limited vocabulary usage, yet intelligent people. Yet nobody drills them on their knowledge, their reading, spelling or anything academically. As an adult it is not challenged or even thought to question. How disrespectful that would be, yet it is okay to disrespect a child in that manner? A person who the questioner may spend a total of 14 days with out of a whole year?

More appropriate ways to handle this concern would be to:

 Find out what kind of reading material they do enjoy reading to bring that to  them.
To encourage reading by using opportunities around you to read the written word.
To actually know how well they are reading by having them read something to you.
Play word games.
To read the Sunday paper comics together.
To find out all the kinds of materials that are used for reading if not books.
To simply quit questioning and grilling in regards to academics, quizzing is disrespectful period.
To bring interesting magazines to the child that go along with their interests.

In the end, my daughter is doing fine and is exactly in the right place to be for her at this time, no quizzing needed. She spends her days reading from a multitude of mediums such as online gaming with friends ( you have to read what they say you know and she has to spell what she wants to say!) Subtitles in movies, paragraphs off of things laying around in print, letters from her sister, signs seen while out and about. Directions to games, researching online and Google searches.

I mean think about it, we are bombarded with the written language with todays information age. Our homes and lives are filled with words.........she has plenty of reading material and reads it quite well, no questions needed because I get to hear her read and I know exactly how well she has been coming along. I do not worry for a minute about her reading capabilities. At 12 she is exactly where she should be  for  her.






 

Monster High: Not Just for Dolls!

 

 

 

An interest in Monster High has been being taken to some wonderful extreme measures, thanks to the involvement of our adult daughter ( who is 26) and her wonderful connection to her younger sis! When she visits they of course will play hours with monster high dolls together, their laughter bursting through the house into the wee hours of the night. Unfortunately she can not visit all that much because she lives 600 miles away from us. However their Monster High play does not end there and has actually started a whole English cross curriculum model that is inspiring as much as entertaining to a young 12 year old girl.

They started a Face Book account where they write back and forth in their Characters names as if they were the Monster High characters themselves. This helps of course with spelling, reading and keyboarding with an amazing amount of imagination going into it

They write letters by hand to each other to,  on a really regular weekly basis. This of course helps with penmanship, spelling and reading as well. Our daughter Corin is so delighted when letters come in  the mail written from a Monster High character of course. They talk about Monster High news of other characters, festivals, and all sorts of things pertaining to the life of Monster High and ghouls. The photos on this post are decorations for a Creepy Crawly Festival coming up.

Our last library trip taken the other day had Corin discovering Monster High books, she is reading right now. She loves to have me sit next to her in case she comes across words she struggles with. I enjoy this time with her as it gives us some girl time together. It also allows me to see how far she has come in what has been a very difficult journey for her. For those who have not followed here for long, she has struggled with Dyslexia which has made spelling and reading a very difficult road for her in deed. Even in speech it is evident at times when she mixes up sentences or says a word completely wrong making it difficult to understand her at times. Yet it seems finally at age 12 these struggles are finally starting to connect for her and these activities are finally coming together in easier terms.

Finding activities she becomes obsessed in, have been key factors in her growing in leaps and bounds with her reading and spelling. Last year was anime and this year Monster High and it has skyrocketed her learning in these areas. This has been an amazing journey to watch her grow in and her confidence has been growing too which has been awesome watching bloom in her. All the activities I have done in the past with her did nothing compared to her obsessions  of high interests.

This Monster High Role playing back and forth has been an incredible base in building learning blocks ( although we did have to purchase the actual dolls of course! LOL) and a deep connection with her sister as well. They keep taking it to a new level where other activities get added into it as well. Sometimes late in the evening, Corin will call her sister on the phone and run off into her room with her laughter bursting through the house late into the night while they act it all out on the phone as if her sis was here spending the night.

Corin would say that this is not school as school is not suppose to be fun....... while it may not be school, she is certainly learning by playing. This is a beautiful thing to watch.



 

Peach Pit Books

Our daughter loves these books (there is I believe 12 in this Shugo Chara set) and on a recent trip to the local library she checked out the 7th one. Now many times she has checked out on or another in this set and we will lay down and read them together. Reading these drives me crazy as it is read backwards.........kids these days are use to this as a numerous of anime type books are readily available. This can be hard for a middle aged woman to get use to!

Anyways what made this trip so darn special is this is her FIRST book she is reading from cover to cover ON HER OWN! Reading has not come easy for this child, and she has only asked me twice how to say a word which were really large words for her. I AM SO PROUD OF HER!

She will giggle and then look up, give me a prelude to what is going on and then read the page she found delightfully funny and she narrated the prelude in an order that made sense! Now for those who do not know her, this may not seem like a big deal. Yet when she speaks, many times the wrong words come out, or she does not string it together in a proper sequence so making sense of what she is trying to say can be quite a struggle.

These are just some struggles that we have dealt with and so in this moment, that has shown huge steps for her, hurdles finally jumped over is a very exciting time. I am so happy for her as this is something she has wanted to do for a long time and has been an on going struggle for her!

In your corner baby, cheering wildly!

Oh and since she loves these books, I ordered #1 for her and will continue until she has all 12!

Reading Help Activity

Awhile ago, an online friend of mine who happened to work with Dyslexia children gave me this idea for an activity to use with my daughter. My daughter really works hard at reading but it is not something that is coming easy, perhaps she simply is not ready. Being interested in reading and being ready to read are really 2 different things. However I figured if this idea may help her along and make it easier for her to learn while finding it fun and enjoyable why not?

So the idea is to write out words but write the vowels in a different color than the rest of the word. We are just doing a simple notebook and am starting by going through the alphabet writing down 8 or 9 new vocab words a day.  While writing the vowels in different colors DID indeed seem to help a lot, Corin asked if I would write out different colors by the syllables rather than vowels. So we tried it and for Corin writing syllables in different colors really helped by leaps and bounds.

Whether it is helping her to slow down, or making it easier for her to break up the words, or just the different colors are helping send the messages in clearer images to her brain, not sure. What I do know is that she is really really enjoying this activity and it IS making reading words much easier for her! Once we go through the new day's vocab words, she likes to then work backwards going over each page again!

I have never pressured her to read and have always taken a relaxed approach with her, being very patient helping her sound out words when she wanted help. It has been a very natural process, a natural process her brother seemed to be able to do over night when one day at 8 years old it simply clicked for him and he knew how. For Corin, it has been a much longer journey, one she has gotten frustrated with many of times for how difficult it seemed to her. Is she Dyslexic? maybe, she has aunts that are, I suppose it may depend on how you look at learning disabilities and the labels that are used for them.

Regardless of the reasons she is only beginning to grasp how to read at 10, I am confident that when she is ready, she will read. I am confident that many other unschoolers report their children learning to read at 10, 12 and sometimes even as late as 14 and that when they do, you do not see a gap. I am confident that while one child is ready to learn to read by age 8 that another child is not ready and that is perfectly okay, that forces the issue may cause much more harm than good. I am confident that as my daughter has struggled in this area for quite a while now, that the way we have allowed it to develop naturally, with no pressure, crying or shouting, that she still LOVES to read and has a deep love for books. I am happy to have found an activity that she finds really fun and that is making a difficult task, easier and more enjoyable for her.