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My youngest didn’t read until he was 10. I wrote a blog post yesterday about how to deal with comments from others and how to maintain the child’s self-esteem when they are late gaining a skill. Interestingly, 10 is within the normal range for reading. http://www.homeschoolhome.blogspot.com
Sounds like he learned read when he was ready to. That is great.
I love this!
My son just learnt to swim. On his own. My husband and I are avid swimmers and for years we would go to the pool with him and just sit there, in the water, as our son splashed and flopped and dunked as he slowly, but surely figured it out. In deep water we would make him wear a lifejacket And then last week he asked if he could jump in without his life jacket. Sure! And he just took off. Just like that. It was incredible! Watching him swim, he looks as skilled and as confident as any big kid. And I had felt so guilty for not putting him in swimming lessons.
And reading is in the back of my mind. My husband and I are also avid readers. We are either reading or reading to our kids. My son has been sitting through chapter books since he’s been three. And then he started school. They were sending home these silly little sentence per page book. I knew what they were doing. And we would read them and sort of laugh at how silly they were. Once I had finished filling out the form, we went back to our chapter books.
I had to resist showing him how to swim (although at times I would try to push and he would just ignore me) as I have to resist showing him the words on the page. Sometimes I run my finger along the bottom until he asks me to stop. Which he always does. I just can’t imagine that being exposed to so many words would not lead to learning.
I struggle with school. Because of their insistence that things happen by a certain time. I already feel guilty because we didn’t practice the french alphabet during summer (as instructed by his kindergarten teacher). I tried a few times, but it felt rote and he didn’t enjoy it. The last thing I want is for him to hate French. And that’s exactly what pushing it on him will lead to. I just speak French to him instead. I feel that I can tolerate school, because I have seen some benefits, until it becomes too intrusive. But I fear my time is running out.
I think perhaps a lot of your answers could be in the way your child learnt to swim…
I love the third photo!
Thanks, a moment in the trees…
Lovely thank you. I am patiently waiting for my son to figure it out and hiding my anxiety (I hope). I love to hear about others who did get there in their own time.
It is so interesting how we are conditioned to think a child is a ‘late’ reader or an ‘early’ reader, they read when they read I think and it is a wonderful thing to watch them develop in their own time. I was given the gift of being told to step away, by my daughter and this has made me not worry about my son’s ability to read. It was such a gift. I cannot believe that I ever worried about my daughters learning to read, as now it all seems such a waste of effort. They do get there. It is society that puts the clock on us all, I think it is wonderful that you are giving your child the honor of stepping back.
Lovely thank you. I love to hear about others who did get there in their own time.
I really believe that children do get there at different speeds. For me it was one of the biggest learning pieces, I had to learn to let go of everything that I had learned about learning to read if that makes sense…
You just had to put up the Managerie Rabbit chair link… sigh. That’s derailed my keep-it-simple plan at the farm house.