Kids and reading

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Three of my five kids are avid readers.  I can't get them to do much else.  Which is a problem at times, but does make things like school a whole lot easier.  People (and teachers) often assume that they could read before they started school.  But, no, they come from my parenting style (aka - quite slack and generally go with what ever makes life easiest) so no teaching going on at home before they started school.  Actually, none of them could read fluently until the end of Year 1 when they were all about 7 and a half years old.

Which is all fine.  But there has been that 2 year period of quiet uncertainty between them starting school and them finally getting the hang of it.  So while my kids haven't progressed at all for months and months, there's always a kid in the class who is extremely gifted so just picked it up without trying.  Or the parents who work really hard at it so they have children who are reading well after one year of school.

I've just been going through that all over again with our number 4 child for the last 18 months.  The quiet uncertainty.  I could tell that he was making all the right 'noises' with reading so I felt confident he'd get there.  But now he's really finally getting it.  He turned 7 in June (the magic number for reading in my personal sample group) and I just realised that he's been reading the Tour de France guide, information from the internet for an assignment and moving up to higher levels in his home readers.  All in the last few weeks.

And all despite his hopeless parents (and we really are quite hopeless - the parent-teacher interview highlighted it quite clearly for us!) he seems to have got it.  I'm mostly pleased for him because books bring so much joy to us in our house.  But also a little bit pleased for myself because it's one thing I can cross off that list that floats through my brain at insane times in the morning.

Comments

Sandra said…
I had 2 early readers and one dyslexic who didn't really enjoy reading till she was in year 5 when it became easier for some reason and therefore became enjoyable rather than hard work.
Used to freak me out that parents would come and ask me for tips since my older girls were such good readers - my only tip was good genes as both of us read before we went to school. The cards from the readers were on the wall in the classrooms in pockets- you'd sometime catch parents checking out other kids reading levels.....We obviously didn't have any special skills in this area considering child 3's problems but that is genetic as well.
July 27, 2011 at 7:28 PM
Kath said…
I agree, Jenny. I found it took time to get to independent reading with my two older kids, then suddenly around 7 or 8, they started lie on their beds and read for ages. Your approach to kids learning to read sounds similar to mine. I'm not sure I'd call you a slack mum, though. Relaxed? Easygoing? That's how I like to think of myself :)
Kath
July 28, 2011 at 4:45 PM
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