It had long been very important to me that my boys LOVE learning. So you might imagine my disillusionment, when at the prime age of five and a half years of age, my boys pored over picture books, and they were being read aloud to (living books!) - but they had NO interest AT ALL in actually reading to gain knowledge for themselves. Matter of fact, they were quite happy for me to read everything to them. They were completely dependent on me for knowledge!
One of the primary means of educating one's self being through reading (obviously); it was brought to my attention that most other children, my childrens' age, already knew or were at least advancing in the skill (it was not mentioned that they HATED it). If I didn't teach my children to read now, they would not be up to par with their peers. No one cared to mention the fact that it takes no time at all to catch up, and that it can be done effortlessly in a matter of weeks if the child is excited to learn... hmmmm.) Well, I caved.
I had no idea what I was doing when I taught my first two children to read; two very different boys learning to read at the very same time. My youngest boy with a lightning quick memory, but with little to no interest in detail, and my eldest slower to make connections, but quite solid once having figured it out. Sure, I tried some CM style lessons even from this earliest point, as described later on, but I had no confidence and as I said before, no idea what kind of progress to expect. Because of pressure to comply with others' expectations of my children needing to read by the ripe old age 6, we started using a quick fix reading program that put a lot of pressure on memorizing an unreliable set of phonics and words by families. It flopped.
They whined. We cried. They hated reading. And I was devastated
They did eventually learn. Somewhere between 8 and 10 years of age. After 3-4 YEARS of reading instruction. Okay, not exactly true. I did some CM-styled lessons (these among those I will outline in the posts to come), I taught them phonograms, I cut and pasted poems, etc. But I wasn't at all sure it would work. After all, the various reading curriculum all make learning to read seem really drawn out and complicated! Following our reading curriculum failure, I laid off for several months (except for games, hoping to regain that LOVE of learning, somewhat tainted by a forced learning to read), but my husband pushed on (it's not his fault, he never had read Charlotte Mason...:). After many trials and tears, I laid us both off again. After all, they were reading, sort of. It was halting, painstakingly brutal for all concerned. They skipped words, guessed words... um. yeah. I thought we'd pretty much ruined them for LIFE...
(next time I'll be posting how things turned for the better... so stay tuned :)
{Thanks to some semi-sinister ways on my part, we finally did trick them into reading... :) }
This is the first post in a series on Teaching Reading that I'll be posting over the next week or so. I'm putting them here for my own reference and the use of anybody else out there who may find our experience helpful. In the later posts I'll include step-by-step instructions as well as printables! All of which, I'm really excited about because I'm just now coming to it again this time around with my littlest guy.
Posts to keep a look out for:
Our Story... I'm a failure. {part one} << -- You are here. :)
Our Story... Struggle no more. {part two}
Our Story... Just relax! {part three} Learning to Read - The Scary Myth {part four}
Playing a Foundation to Build on.
First Reading Lessons in Earnest.
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