The Learning Umbrella

Wednesday was our weekly trip to our local public library. We returned two canvas bags of books and videos, and left with two bags of new books and videos. Most of those books were children's picture books for Carbon to read and have read to him. I call it reading when he chooses to sit and look through a picture book on his own, turning the pages and making comments about the pictures. Actually, this is "pre-literacy", and he is showing that he knows how books work and that he has an enjoyment of books. I'm currently reading Einstein Never Used Flashcards by Kathy Hirsh-Pasek and Roberta Michnick Golinkoff, and Wednesday happened to be the day I read the chapter on literacy. For the most part, I was very cheered by what I read, because it stressed that developing a love of reading was the most important thing for literacy. The specific advice they gave parents at the end of the chapter was: make reading part of your and your child's lives (check, we read everyday), create an environment rich with literacy materials (check, books and magazines and junk mail and even magnetic letters litter my whole house), use stamps to help your child learn the letters (not checked, but an interesting idea I may try out), converse with your child (check, we talk until I'm blue in the face), play word games (I'm going to try to do more of that), talk about the story and other things as you read (check, I ask him what will happen next, do you see anything else on this page, etc.). So, parents should read and talk to their kids - you might just say DUH! But there was something else in that chapter that gave me pause: "We have emphasized 'in the classroom' because that is where reading instruction really belongs. At home, the name of the game is balance" (page 122). So where does that leave homeschoolers who will not be sending their children "into the classroom"? One way I interpret it is that formal instruction can wait until your child is "school age". Another thought I had is that when I talk to people about how they learned to read (an assignment I had while I was getting my Masters), most people told me they "just did" and "no one really taught me". That matches with what I remember about learning to read. I feel like I just started reading one day, after my mom had read the same books to me over and over and over again. I'm not sure it worked the same way with my brothers, though. For now, personally I'll continue as I am. However, formal instruction in the future is not out of the question, when a child is ready for it. The beauty of homeschooling is that it can be tailored to what your child is ready for, not what they "should" be ready for at their chronological age.