Reading Readiness

How do I know if my child is ready to learn to read?  Is three too young?  Is six too late?  I tortured myself over this with my first and have since learned ways to watch an individual child to see if they can handle learning to read.  I would like to share a little trick that I came across a few years ago.  It really seems to hold true, so here it is.

Does your child draw people in their pictures?  If they do, what do the people look like?  Are they big circles with a face?  Do they have arms and legs?  Being able to draw a person and put the parts in the right place seems to match up with the brain's ability to put letters together to form words.  Let me show you what I mean.

Notice that the people are primarily heads.  The "legs and arms" are simply lines that are tacked on after, but not really in the right spot.  There is also no body.  This is a first stage person.  Sadie drew this the other day.  She is 3 and a half.  I can also say that she is no where near being ready to tackle even the alphabet, let alone beginning reading lessons.  I am teaching her to write her name, but she can only trace over mine at this point.  I will continue to watch her pictures, and I also play copy games with her to let her try to write letters.  I point out letters in books, etc.  I'll continue to watch for comprehension.

This drawing has all the parts in the right place.  We have a head with face and hair.  The body is proportionate.  The arms and legs come out at about the right place and we even see hands and fingers.  No, those aren't bunny ears, silly!  This is an indian with feathers.  I would call this a stage two person.  Not a lot of detail yet, but everything is in the right place.  This child would definitely be ready to tackle an actual reading program.  This is Isaac's drawing from the other day.  He is five, and on lesson 17 in "How to teach your child to read in 100 easy lessons."  He is reading 3 and 4 letter words, and can write his name as well as copy anything I put in front of him.  He also can write letters from dictation.  He is probably my most advanced student for his age.

This picture has no stick person elements.  There is also a refreshing presence of clothing!  I would call this stage three.  Many grownups are too lazy to go to this effort lol!  We like stick people.  As I said before, stage two is usually a good indication of reading readiness.  This stage is just a great bonus.  This is Holly's drawing.  She just turned seven.  She is a little bit ahead of her little brother in reading ability.  Why is she not farther along?  Well, I didn't watch closely enough.  I spent months trying to teach her the alphabet, and ending up boring her to death and making zero progress.  I finally wised up and put her in "100 easy lessons."  They have the child reading actual words by about lesson 7 or 8.  She just took off at that point because she had a reason for learning.  She is now reading sentences and doing quite well.

Do I think "100 easy lessons is the only acceptable reading program?  Absolutely not.  I started Naomi in it and took her out.  She learned to read through a combination of several sources.  The whole point is to watch closely.  Are they ready?  Are they progressing?  Is the method I'm using slow enough, or, more likely, is it fast enough?  Do they enjoy learning to read?  I can't stress enough that if what you're using isn't working, try something else.

May your journey with your child down the road to reading be a happy one!  And may all their drawings be fully clothed!

Homeschool philosophy - my roots

First, I must admit that I did spend some time in public school.  But when my mom found out that homeschooling was legal, those years became a distant memory.  She went to a homeschool conference and came home with our books on order.  She sent a letter to the superintendent to pull us out of school.  I was about to enter 10th grade, and my little sister was starting 6th.  The first year, we used a packaged christian curriculum.  I remember filling out pages of schoolwork that we sent in to be corrected.  We soon learned that it drove me crazy to answer meaningless science questions, but I could talk for hours about what I was learning.  My little sister, however, would hide in a corner and read for hours, secretly despising my need to talk through every assignment.  (Love you, my dear sister!  We are such good friends now.)  We would later find out that I was an audio learner and she was a visual learner.

I discovered that the public school had never heard of infinitives and gerunds.  World history was another topic I knew little about.  My mom, who loves history, made timeline notebooks for us with the years going across the top of each page in a binder.  We added maps, dates, illustrations.  It is still a cherished possession that I hope to add to along with my children.  I already have two timeline notebooks on the shelf (made by Marme, as we call my mom) waiting for them to get a little older.

We started having Bible study together as a family in the evening.  My Dad would quiz us for tests.  I loved having a dad that really tried to be involved where he could.  He tried to help me with my physics workbook, but it didn't end well, for the book.  (Mental note that later became a guiding principle:  Workbooks are not always the best option.)  We played educational games like Muggins and AC DC, dad's personal favorite.

The next year, my mom got very brave and chose all her own curriculum.  Before the days of the internet, she drove hours to book fairs, and conferences.  She had to buy some things blind and hope that they would work.  Later she would confess, "How did I buy that many books?"  Well, mom, it was completely necessary.  How else would I have all these books to homeschool my kids?  The historical novel became a staple in our educational diet.  Cultural literacy became a household phrase.  "Far above Rubies" was used extensively.  My mom also became the matriarch of homeschooling for several counties at about this time.  Anyone interested in homeschooling came to her.

Did I miss school?  NOO!  I loved being at home with my family, and never missed the shallow and irrresponsible kids my age.  I much preferred the company of adults.  By the way, what about driving, etc?  My dad taught me how to drive, and I took my test at 19.  I still took private flute lessons, and traveled teaching Bible clubs every summer. 

When I graduated, I homeschooled college, too.  I took correspondence courses until I met Doug.  I managed to get 34 credits and was happy to set that aside and take up home life again in a different home.

Well, I could say much more.  Those years were very full and happy.  But I will refer to them more as I look at specific topics.

Thanks, Mom and Dad!

Homeschool philosophy - intro

I am a second generation homeschooler, meaning I was homeschooled and now I am homeschooling my own children.  My mom and I have spent many hours discussing this and that aspect of education.  Then we went to the trenches and tried it out.  Perhaps some of you homeschooling for the first time would appreciate a little insight from someone who's been there, from both sides of the desk, as it were.  (ok, kitchen table)

If you find my well organized ramblings helpful, great!  I have fulfilled my destiny.  :)
If you think I'm crazy, well, that's ok too.  I fully respect your use of the circular file.  (trash bin)
If anything, I get to write down all my ideas and insights and experience.
I hope you enjoy it.

My next installment will be titled:  My Roots.

My week in two words

I love how people do posts with two words, so I thought I'd give it a try.  So here's my week in two words.

sheep butchering

(obviously no picture here)

bye-bye flu

(again, an obvious lack of picture)

hello schedule

(perhaps there will be pictures of the benefits forthcoming)

new friend

(okay, I'm really bombing on pics here)

tomato sauce

(how'd that get in here?  tomato sauce tastes terrible to me right now!)

Pagoo grows

see, there's a picture

fur hat

blog ideas

(these will be appearing soon, particularly in my new tabs at the top)

So, there you have it! And for my two final words:

Shabbat Shalom!

Really good soup

Sunday we butchered a sheep, and cooked down as many bones as we could fit in our pots.  Today I was feeling much better after my little visit from a friendly little flu bug.  (Okay, he was really mean, and beat me up and left me for dead.)  So I made some soup from the broth. 

I strained out the bones and yucky stuff, and removed the fat.  Then I added enough water to give me about 5 quarts.  I added boullion.  Gramma chopped up lots of carrots, celery and onion.  Then we let it simmer for awhile.  I added about 1 1/2 c of lentils and some sage, cayenne pepper, salt and pepper.  Doug helped me refine the seasoning a bit at this point.  I throw in things from an herbalist point of view.  He throws things in from a culinary point of view.  He added some garlic (how did I forget how healthy garlic is?).  Last came a whole bunch of vegetable rotini. 

Everyone loved it.  It even set well on my not so settled tummy.  We served it with fresh warm bread with lots of butter.  Yummy!

By the way, Mom, I have a couple quarts of broth in the freezer for you, too.  :)