I’ve mentioned maybe once or twice 😉 how Scarlett is picking up the bones of learning to read and write without reading schemes, alphabet learning etc. At risk of repeating myself again but in order to make of it properly what I think I’ve been getting at with passing references I’ll try and put it all a bit better.
Scarlett is very much the product of handsoff education. Possibly because I used up my rather short attention span for ‘teaching’ on Davies in a burst of early enthusiasm for the sitting down at desks, colour coded timetable type of home ed, possibly because we seem to have better things to do with our days (which is no critcism of people who do follow such things) and most probably because she is the child least likely to do anything like that anyway! 😆 In much the same way as Scarlett has been very good at being the second child because she is very able to snatch one to one time when she needs it by coming and finding me when Davies is otherwise engaged she is also very good at announcing her wish to ‘know’ something, which she goes about finding out and then considers it ‘known’ and carries on about her business. Whereas Davies has picked up his passions and interests by them being things I have consciously focussed on and guided him towards from an educated ‘I think he might like this’ mentality and mostly getting it right Scarlett has very much forged her way and claimed things as her own. She has some innate sense of knowing when something might be interesting to her and appearing alongside my elbow taking it all in. An example of this is baking which we probably do together at least once most weeks, never announced, I will just go off and start and she will suddenly be there in the kitchen with her stool ready to grease a pan.
Davies and I sat with 100EL for a fair few hours and we had Letterland flash cards and he learnt all the sounds of the alphabet via that. It didn’t get him reading though. What appears to have been the catalyst – although we are still in infancy stages – is lying in bed on his own looking at books and desperately wanting to be able to read them to himself. Spending time trying to decode the words and make sense of sentences – in observing how he turned off and we fell out over trying to get him to read Bob books compared to how he strives and thirsts for being able to read a Wallace and Gromit comic book or a Doctor Who story the motivation for him has become clear. He doesn’t want to read particularly, but he does want to be able to read certain things. I reckon there’s a difference. It’s like not being arsed about being rich but wanting enough money to affford a specific car if that makes sense. If there is a proper goal in sight, something he actually wants then he can make the effort, but just being able to do something for the sake of it holds no real appeal. It needs relevance or purpose.
Scarlett is appearing to be much the same, but without the initial meddling on my part of introducing the idea of ‘learning to read’. I ebayed those Letterland flash cards the other day, along with a parents guide to Letterland and the Letterland ABC book and had a quick flick through as I listed it. The idea of Lovely Lamp Lady being relevant to Scarlett made me laugh. L to Scarlett is a letter in her name so she is aware of it, and on Friday she found out it is also in the word ‘love’ and ‘Lula’ when she wrote both words for a birthday card. Letters like ‘b’ which don’t appear in any of our names are as yet not worth knowing as far as she’s concerned. This is a pretty unconventional way of approaching reading as far as I know but seems to be the one that works for her. She told me the other day that David Tennant was a good choice to play The Doctor because lots of the letter sounds were the same and went on to say that Davies and Daddy were also the same sound at the beginning. She often comes up with rhyming words and tells me what sound it is that rhymes in them and the next time she is doing some writing or looking at letters she might refer to those words again. Just like Davies Scarlett is more interested in writing that reading. They both seem to place more importance on their own output than the words of others.
I have no real idea how different what they are doing is to other children and in fairness I don’t much care, comparison isn’t of much interest to me. I do talk a bit about what we’re not doing because I think it is very relevant. In deviating from the norm in the first place by Home Educating I am very used to explaining why we do what we do and justifying the differences. Most other Home Educators I know, whether autonomous or not mention some sort of method of assisting with reading and letter learning from sewing textured letters to reading Bob books. I can’t ‘celebrate’ the ways in which Davies and Scarlett are moving towards reading and writing in their own ways without mentioning the difference in how they are getting there to how most other people seem to, it is relevant in our lifestyle because we are doing something different to others. For me, for us, the way life, education, autonomy, whatever, is working is by Davies and Scarlett finding relevance in things and moving from not knowing them to knowing them, collecting knowledge if you like and then deciding how to use it. I think that is probably how all education and learning happens it’s just that this is far more random, 100% personalised and yet, despite this lack of structure or framework it is somehow all meshing together anyway. It’s all a bit like a giant Rolf Harris or Tony Hart picture that looks like a random collection of lines and marks with no way to ‘tell what it is yet’ but then suddenly, gloriously, it all makes sense and comes together as one.
Of course there is every chance this long way round approach is crazy, that at some future point Scarlett will come to me and ask why I let her go round learning individual letters at various unconnected points when there was already a perfectly good alphabet all in order with it’s own theme tune and everything, or that she’ll discover the Jolly Phonics system and wonder why I let her muddle through the wilderness like a lost person without a compass when she could have just learnt it all in one go but Davies had a go on the short cut path and took this long old detour back round a different way and it’s even more interesting to watch Scarlett doing it her way, without a parachute.
You should probably do a similar blog post on the MonsterTeeny blog where you can reach the unenlightened masses. I’ve got a feeling that here you are preaching to people who are either confident in their own approach or already converted. 😉
But yes, I know how exciting it is because I’m watching a similar thing with Ms R, I’m finding it really quite astonishing how she just seems to get a sudden ‘need’ for word/letter info.
When you hear so many people talk about the childs ‘right to a basic education’ (aka going to school), the importance of learning their letters by a certain age and the necessity of ‘making it fun’ it’s difficult to believe that children really can learn just by living. Maybe its just our children rather than some amazing phenomenon that works for all.
“I can’t ‘celebrate’ the ways in which Davies and Scarlett are moving towards reading and writing in their own ways WITHOUT MENTIONING THE DIFFERENCE in how they are getting there to how most other people seem to, it is relevant in our lifestyle because we are doing something different to others.” (my emphasis)
OK, see that is the bit I don’t understand.
Why on earth not? (Especially as Lucy says, to people who know you.)
E.g. I don’t praise HE by talking about how rubbish school is, or tell people the advantages of homebirth by running down hospitals. I find it’s more polite when explaining the perfectness of my choices to avoid slagging off other people’s choices whilst I’m doing it.
I know thats the bit you don’t understand and I’m not trying to preach to converted, I’m simply using my blog which I keep primarily as a record for me to detail what’s happening with my children just now. I dont give a fuck about politeness and I’m not trying to tell anyone else how to do anything, just recording how what we do works for us. Privately I have all sorts of opinons about what other people are doing but I’m not sharing those, I’m simply writing about what happens here, but for me, that also includes detailing what we don’t do.
I don’t really get why this is an issue, I know the same thing has happened when I’ve talked about why we’ve not used nursery. Yes, the truth is that in believing strongly in one thing by definition you must also feel the other path is wrong but ONLY FOR US. I don’t think it’s wrong that you use workbooks, that Helen and Elinor have drawn up a timetable this weekend, that Lucy has lots of Peter and Jane books, or any of the other things that I read on other people’s blogs and I wouldn’t leave comments to that effect on them either, but I don’t think they would work for us and every so often I feel the need to record why not.
I’m not blogging to be contentious, to have a poke at other people and their approach or to try and convert anyone to my way of thinking. I have no desire to create an uncurriculum or persuade anyone else to my way of thinking, I’m just detailing our journey and along the way for every decision I make to do something a certain way I have discounted the other routes in doing so and I’m explaining why I have discounted them as well as why I have chosen the way we are going.
Alison I think it is just the surprise/relief of it happening when you’ve hoped/believed that it would happen this way that makes a person want to shout it from the rooftops. I guess you’ve watched three or four children learn to read already and although I’m sure it’s just as magical every time I expect it stops being such a surprise.
I remember thinking that Rebecca would never crawl, she sat so still for so long that people started making comments and although I was sure she would oneday crawl I had this niggling fear that maybe she’d still be sat smiling contendedly when she was ten and that it would all be my fault.
I don’t think its the comparison per say that is the issue. I think maybe its that often it feels as though that is your main yard stick. That you can only measure your children’s success by how it might have been should it have been done another way.
This is a bit alien to me, because I don’t feel that about mine at all. We just do what we do, because we do it, and the rest of the worlds methods seem a bit irrelevant.
I don’t see that you’re slagging off anyone elses methods though, only in as much as saying that it isn’t right for you.
I totally get it Nic, I enjoyed this post. And I don’t think you’re slagging anyone else’s choices off – for them – I don’t see that here at all. I really enjoyed this post and don’t see why you shouldn’t mention what you aren’t doing – it seems relevant to me, especially in the context of stuff you did try with Davies and how that all went wrong. You are only presuming to speak for you and D and S, as far as I can see? This seems like somewhere you should be able to do that without it upsetting people reading as they know what your position is and presumably aren’t threatened by it.
Erm, I actually like to hear opinion – real opinion, not that tempered by concern for ‘politeness’. I think that if you are taking a path that is so much the minority route (in terms of education as a whole, not necessarily the home ed world) you need to be able to document it, celebrate it, and consider how/why it is working, in comparison to the ‘normal’ approach. It is just this kind of account that is valuable when it comes to having to defend your choices in a wider world that thinks you’re loopy. I know that I’ve used Gill’s blog posts in such a way. I could write something FAR ruder about reading schemes! In fact, I’ve been working on something related for a while now.
As for not slagging off schools…
rofl Nic at including us. FWIW I felt vaguely ashamed by our timetable, but recognised that SB actually chose to want one, and did it. As sarah pointed out, a lot of our ‘timetable’ which I guess is just a weekly aspiration list! is already done most weeks. but it doesn’t feel v autonomous, and does feel v schooly. I guess ultimately i am comfortable with it, cos why not? she wanted to see what she was doing and there is no compulsion to do it, follow it, or carry on it at all. i imagine this week will be a one week wonder!
I guess I also don’t really care how others are doing it, as long as it is working for them and theirs. Davies and SB being entirely different kinds of people, just like you and i are. so it stands to reason we might go about things in an entirely different way. but, I enjoy reading your blog, interested in what and how you do things and even digs at timetables aside, don’t feel insulted/threatened by your choices any more than you would by mine.
probably in part cos i don’t think there is any right way to home ed children [or ed them infact] there might be a few wrong ways, but if children are happy, healthy , inquisitive where knowledge/life is concerned, and this is encouraged then its OK. I am sure davies and scarlett will learn to read at their own pace and if we looked at all the children at 16 it will be prob impossible to see who learnt earliest etc, but we will see then, as now the diversity of interests, confidences and styles they have.
not that you need my reassurance or any external validity of your blog from me mind you!
[did any of the above make sense?]
” I find it’s more polite when explaining the perfectness of my choices to avoid slagging off other people’s choices whilst I’m doing it. ”
I could take your reference to the perfectness of your choices as you slagging off my very different choices. 😉
I don’t think nic is slagging anyones choices off, she is simply expressing her opinion on her own blog/diary, and surely she should be able to be as honest and opinionated and impolite as she wishes.
i for one enjoy reading her blog, her opinions, her thoughts and find it fascinating to hear her comparisons between scarletts complete autonomy and davies earlier years.
Thanks folks 🙂 and Helen, yes it did make sense x