The article I share with you today is about how some children think and process differently and thus causing them to be able to read at different ages. I hope this article will help give you confidence that your child will eventually “get” it and not to be frustrated or exasperated in the time being.

Until next time, God bless,

Michele ºÜº

From Barking to Fluency

Helping You Focus While Your Struggling Reader Figures It Out

By Kathy Reynolds

Book in hand, 12-year-old Brent barked¹ nonstop throughout the reading. His frustration mounted, he fumbled, and I felt awkward. My teacher-ingrained confidence trusted that my young sons would fare far better than this young man was faring. Homeschooling? Scary stuff!

Uh-oh, my inflated ego was showing.

Later, having been humbled through our own struggles, I empathized with Brent and what numerous other homeschoolers had experienced. I wish I had known more about the process my later-age readers were going through.

My firstborn, Josiah, read early and easily. If one of my two middle sons had been first in line, I’d have thought I failed, miserably.

• A good teacher is not noted by how early a child masters important skills.
• All kids don’t read and write fluently by second grade.
• The reading process varies, sometimes taking years.
• Poor readers in elementary school could end up as thriving bibliophiles in high school.

Reading Can Wait

Parenting is a challenge. James 1:4 reminds us that patience produces maturity (or perfection) with perpetual results. Better Late Than Early authors, Raymond and Dorothy Moore, share many unconventional success stories through their research and publications. Their conclusion is significant: “. . . We analyzed over 8,000 studies of children’s senses, brain, cognition, socialization, etc., and are certain that no replicable evidence exists for rushing children into formal study at home or school before 8 or 10.”²

I was eager, yet sometimes frazzled, as our homeschool adventures evolved. Gideon and Ben were ages 11 and 10 when reading finally clicked, so that’s a five/six-year wait and commitment to reading readiness activities compared to their older brother, who was fluent at 5.

We don’t just wait for their brains to get ready, though. In Different Learners, Jane Healy, Ph.D. advises that we prepare the brains of late-bloomers by providing the right experiences, and get this: she proposes that they may be smarter in the long run.³ She cites a study published in 2006: “. . . Children who ended up with the superior intellectual abilities were the ones whose brains took longest to mature—as much as four years longer—possibly because the extra time helped them develop richer neural networks.”⁴ Was this the case for Albert Einstein, Thomas Edison, or Leonardo da Vinci, who were noted for their learning glitches?⁵

Attitude Is Prime

Many discouraged late-bloomers think of themselves as stupid. Children need success—not failure, which can result in being labeled as some kind of failure. Thankfully, with homeschooling, my sons were spared those disabling tags and accompanying ridicule, yet there were instances in Sunday School, with neighbor kids, and with some well-intentioned adults that we had to be wary of.

I believed that my sons would become young men of character, great readers, and independent thinkers (they did!)—so my actions had to show it. It’s not about how quickly they get it or the number of books they read or how high they score on testing day. It’s about meeting children face to face, loving them with the love of Christ in us, being an example of His grace and goodness, and enjoying life and learning together. Had I realized some things earlier, my different learners would have figured things out with a healthier can-do mindset, with less pushing and fretting, and with more rejoicing and admiration for the mega-way God wired them.

Right Is Bright

In her consultation practice, Dianne Craft finds that 80% of the struggling learners she sees are right-brain dominant.⁶ At 14, Jeremie asked me if I thought in pictures. “Huh?” It was a Twilight Zone moment. As a visual-spatial learner,⁷ when he reads he sees pictures in his mind. “Don’t you focus on and say the words to yourself?” I asked. Nope—he visualizes and then stores it in his memory. Why didn’t I know this before?

“Aha!” That’s what I said while reading Right-Brained Children in a Left-Brained World.⁸ I now understood the tears and misunderstandings we had experienced. It’s no wonder that reading aloud is frustrating: they see words, make the connection to turn them into pictures, and then must verbalize them.⁹ But hey, these same kids will likely become great silent readers! Just think—he who easily visualizes comprehends best.¹⁰ As a teenager, I remember devouring difficult books with no comprehension; I read every word, but was I reading?

In college my husband and I took the same history class. My left-brained self attended every lecture, studied and re-read every chapter in the book, and took copious notes, while my husband just sat through the lecture—we both got a B. His and my sons’ method of figuring out difficult problems in their heads astounds me; their memories are the notepads. Do right-brainers have an advantage?

Phonics Plus Mnemonics

Eventually most right-brained children do learn to read by around third grade, probably with the help of an expanding sight vocabulary.¹¹ The more right-brained a child is, the less progress you’ll likely see with your phonics program. For us, phonics wasn’t enough. We added a visual-kinesthetic approach to our routine. Looking at color-coded cards and gazing upward while visualizing, Ben clapped the rhythm with me while spelling words aloud. It appeared that dictation and copywork—Charlotte Mason style, plus memorizing rhymes and Scripture, reinforced the reading process and advanced their progress. Games like those found in Peggy Kaye’s Games for Reading added an element of fun too.¹²

Rule Out Dyslexia

According to Dr. Moore, dyslexia exists in brain-damaged children, and we should not attach the dyslexic label to a child simply because his physiology is not mature enough to tackle the complexity of reading at the moment.¹³ The subtle dyslexic tendencies my sons displayed were not an issue after I read John Holt’s interesting perspective about dyslexia in his book Teach Your Own.¹⁴ Prayerfully seeking knowledge about human biology, nutritional science, and learning styles is important, and sometimes professional help and testing is warranted. Become the expert.

Take heart and change your focus. Consider that your child is not delayed or disabled—God’s design is that we don’t all learn in the same ways or on the same schedule. Thank God, and revel in who your child is.

“I have set the Lord always before me: because He is at my right hand, I shall not be moved. Therefore my heart is glad, and my glory rejoiceth: my flesh also shall rest in hope” (Psalm 16: 8–9).

Encourage Independent Interests

Inspire kids to explore their fascinations and fine-tune their pursuits. If your focus is on areas your child is enthusiastic about, reading won’t be as big of an issue. You should read aloud, exposing your child to the wonders of language, but set a five-minute oral limit for your child. Our sons craved books about facts, science, action, oddities, biographies—and those that struck the funny bone. Enjoy growing your home library with the use of resources such as Who Should We Then Read.¹⁵

Success! Our sons eventually figured it out while I focused on character with one main academic goal: to give them the tools necessary for independent learning. Those baffling, barking days are over and we’ve been blessed to homeschool, which is not scary and one of my favorite activities!

Kathy homeschooled her four sons for twenty-three years—the youngest is a 2012 homeschooling graduate. All are excellent readers, lovers of life and learning, and independent-thinking entrepreneur types like their dad. Kathy is a freelance writer and newly re-licensed RN with interests in holistic natural health, raw food preparation, book collecting and encouraging others. Visit Kathy at her blogs: LivingLearningatHome.blogspot.com and RawChef30days.blogspot.com.

Endnotes:

1. Known as barking at print: sounding out the words, without expression or meaning.

2. www.moorefoundation.com/article/5/moore-formula.

3. Jane M. Healy, Ph.D., Different Learners, Simon & Schuster, 2011, pg. 220.

4. Ibid., pg. 221.

5. Jeffrey Freed, M.A.T., and Laurie Parsons, Right-Brained Children in a Left-Brained World, Simon & Schuster Inc., 1997, pg. 31.

6. www.diannecraft.org. Excellent site to help with visual processing and a variety of learning problems.

7. www.dyslexia.com/library/silver1.htm.

8. Jeffrey Freed, M.A.T., and Laurie Parsons, Right-Brained Children in a Left-Brained World, Simon & Schuster, 1997.

9. Ibid., pg. 104.

10. Ibid., pg. 113.

11. Ibid., pg. 106.

12. Peggy Kaye, Games for Reading, Pantheon Books, 1984, www.peggykaye.com/target.php?ct=welcome.

13. Dr. Raymond and Dorothy Moore, The Successful Homeschool Family Handbook, Thomas Nelson Inc., 1994, pg. 102.

14. John Holt, Teach Your Own, Da Capo Press, 2003.

15. Jan Bloom, Who Should We Then Read, Booksbloom, 2001.

Copyright 2012, used with permission. All rights reserved by author. Originally appeared in the October 2012 issue of The Old Schoolhouse® Magazine, the family education magazine. Read the magazine free at www.TOSMagazine.com or read it on the go and download the free apps at www.TOSApps.com to read the magazine on your mobile devices

When I began our homeschool journey, I thought education was merely about academics. Thankfully, God gave me the right connections to change my thinking. I soon realized educating my children was more about discipling them and teaching them HOW to learn and then encouraging them to find the answers they wanted. It was more about lighting a fire inside (inspiring) them to love learning than it was to fill their heads with knowledge.

I think this article gives an interesting perspective. I hope you will enjoy it.

Until next time, God bless,

Michele ºÜº

Parents as Inspirers

By Karen Andreola

Ask anyone in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, about the annual end-of-summer agricultural fairs and you will be told that they are serious business. They’re fun, too. Our town’s fair begins with a parade. The streets are lined with enthusiastic faces. Three days of exhibits on the fairgrounds follow. Ferris wheels and all other rides are barred from the fair, and so are prize stalls. Therefore no ticket stubs litter the ground.

The fair is free. Many volunteer to run it. Many more enter. When we had recently moved to our town, the first time we visited the fair and stepped into an exhibit hall, I was astounded. I wasn’t expecting to see so many entries, so carefully crafted by both children and adults (displayed safely under plastic). Within moments a tear filled my eye. I couldn’t help it. But I wiped it away instantly, not wishing to appear emotional in public. I was impressed. The most wonderful thing is that I felt inspired.

I examined the knitting, sewn garments, quilts, and embroidery and knew from experience the unmarked hours that had gone into each entry. I marveled at what was home grown. Flowers more beautiful than in a florist shop. Whole rows of fruits, vegetables, herbs, baked goods, and preserves glowed more appealingly fresh and delicious than what can be bought at the grocery store. Indeed things are still made in the USA—as long as there are pumpkins . . .

Never had I seen such fastidiously groomed and healthy dairy cows and other farm animals. I couldn’t help notice their owners, the young people, who handled their animals with pride and confidence.

The aisles of amateur photographs, the tables of crafts, and a wall of paintings spoke to me that people have found things to like about their world—enough to capture it in art. The dreary, murmuring attitude of “why bother” was put to shame.

The key word here is inspiration. Those who put the work and care into making an entry in the agricultural fair had to have been inspired by someone. From whence do you derive your inspiration?

Our Educational Responsibilities

To educate is to inspire. It is to sustain the inner life of a child with ideas. Ideas come by inspiration. We find them in books and experiences. As home teachers we are tempted (when exhausted) to tackle our educational responsibilities with the burdensome view of getting through a stack of educational materials: so much needs to be covered before the week is out, before the semester is out, before the year is out.

A Yoke That Is Easy

I once mentioned in A Charlotte Mason Companion: It isn’t how much a child covers that matters most but how much he cares. When we understand that education is much, much more than the three R’s or more than covering all the material, we are refitted with a yoke that is easy. We are more willingly harnessed to the task and work faithfully, carefully, and lovingly. Why does the yoke seem easier? We recognize the importance of our call and have taken on a special role. Parents are to be inspirers.

A Child’s First Copybook

By the very lives we live, we are sowing seeds of ideas in our children. A sobering old proverb states: “Parents are a child’s first copybook.” Because we love our children, we seek God to help us demonstrate understanding, kindness, patience, cheerfulness, hard work, and reverence in our homes. How else can children learn how to show these to others? Through books, written by people inspired by ideas, we give children what is pure, lovely, noble, and just to think about. Books alive with ideas do the teaching.

“Right thought flows upon the stimulus of an idea, and ideas are stored . . . in books and pictures and the lives of men and nations; these instruct the conscience and stimulate the will.”¹

Passing on the Torch

A good schoolbook shows us what virtue looks like. Textbooks do the job of offering us facts, but seldom do they go into the interesting detail of discovery, invention, or spiritual awakening. So we rely on other sorts of books to inspire us. This fallen world is not all sweetness. Therefore we reach for books that accompany life’s hard truths with hope.

In literature, we meet sorrow, but we ought also to meet large-hearted characters that comfort. In history and biography we meet those who destroy, so we look for those brave souls who build, defend, or minister the gospel. Science rises to meet the challenge of hardship and sickness, and so we read about the inventors and the healers. Inspiration comes by way of those who uncover truth and pass on the flaming torch of ideas (especially needed in dark places). Some day our children may be one of the torchbearers.

Charlotte Mason borrows language from Ecclesiastics when she tells us: “The duty of parents is to sustain a child’s inner life with ideas as they sustain his body with food. The child is an eclectic; he may choose this or that; therefore, in the morning sow thy seed, and in the evening withhold not thy hand, for thou knowest not which shall prosper . . .”²

Endnotes:

1. Charlotte Mason, Philosophy of Education, Charlotte Mason Research & Supply, page 130.

2. Ibid., page 39.

Home educators know Karen Andreola by her groundbreaking book A Charlotte Mason Companion. Karen taught her three children through high school–studying with them all the many wonderful things her own education was missing. The entire Andreola family writes product reviews for Rainbow Resource Center. Knitting mittens and sweaters and cross-stitching historic samplers are activities enjoyed in Karen’s leisure. For encouraging ideas, visit her blog: www.momentswithmotherculture.blogspot.com.

Copyright 2012, used with permission. All rights reserved by author. Originally appeared in the September 2012 issue of The Old Schoolhouse® Magazine, the family education magazine. Read the magazine free at www.TOSMagazine.com or read it on the go and download the free apps at www.TOSApps.com to read the magazine on your mobile devices.