Old Time Summer

Tag: Learning Styles

  • Reading Struggles

    Our 8 year old isn’t reading still, though he does recognize some letter/word combos … but just stays frustrated about not reading, that it doesn’t magically appear, I think.

    My frustration is high as well. We have had this and that and that other and this other thing to aide him. Me working with him, he working alone with a program. Nothing works.

    Reader Rabbit really helped my eldest, Russell, move forward in reading. He didn’t have RR at first, it was something we got later. Asa, the 8 year old, “grew up” having RR around. So what did he do after he got through with one of the RR dics? “I beat it” was his comment. Game mentality.

    We got the new TAG reading system from LeapFrog in order to have an interactive book experience that wasn’t fully electronic, and give him a new challenge. He uses it, but won’t USE it. I sit with him and he just dullardly looks on, or loses it.

    So if I just talk about it other times he says “I’ve gotten all the rewards I can get, I can’t get more, it won’t give me more” is what he says. Game Mentality.

    Now as games go, it is beneficial to be able to read, but it’s quite the phenomena that most games can be played without reading. I mean, others can aide the non-reader through “HAVE TO READ SOMETHING” parts, and depending on what game it is and the non-readers desire to play that game … it can work. I’ve seen him play Wii or PS3 or PS2 or internet games, and he just goes, goes, goes. As long as it moves, he can do it, and just blusters through any words, never trying to read.

    It’s a game mentality, which I’m not trying to break, I just want to add reading onto his skill set. I want him to read, I want him to want to read. I just need him to read so he can read anything in life that he comes in contact with. I would like him to love reading, but I can’t make him be a great lover of reading.

    My first two children love reading and read, read, read. Both started their massive reading ability by the time they were my Asa’s current age. I’m not looking for that in him. I know it’s taking longer, and I’m only looking for some progress in understanding that learning a few words and phonograms is step 1, and step 2 is an easy step, but even step 1 seems to disappear, as if he’s looking for an easy ramp to reading, not wanting to climb steps. Even a whole word approach isn’t working. There is no ramp up to the spot he wants one. He’s stuck in the nether-regions of “It’d be so nice if I could read, I’ll think about that tomorrow.”

  • The reasons for this blog

    I have been blogging since 2002, but have had a website since 1995. Our first child was born in 1996 and recently turned 13 years of age. We have three more children, ranging from 10 years down to nearly 2 years of age.

    We homeschool in a casual sort of way, and the idea of an old-fashioned summer, the way the summer memories of old feel in our minds is the idea of education I have for my children. I want them to remember their young years from that romantic position. That is, the idea of a Monet painting, a blue sky, seaside classic sort of feeling.

    Learning is to be loved, cherished. Many things are learned in very early childhood, and they are very important. The first thing to be learned once ready to learn more officially though is “how to read”. This can be accomplished through many ways, but the first thing that must be learned is “what is the child’s learning style” and then the right method can be chosen to aide them in reading.

    Some children learn to read easily and others take more time. My first two children learned easily, nearly as easily as it seems to me that I learned all those years ago. It just happened over time, with reading at ages 6 & 7 occuring, but really reading for themselves, longer and longer books, happening once they turned 8 years old. Voracious reading set in at that point.

    My third child is now 8 and isn’t yet reading. Nothing can induce him to actually read, though he’s wildly intelligent and clever, smart and active. He’s coming along slowly with reading, sometimes seeming to get more, it’s 3 steps forward, 8 steps back. He’s fine on learning and understanding and so much, just doesn’t really want to read, isn’t ready for it for some reason yet. I’m not concerned for it’s not totally unusual for a boy to not read until around 10 years of age. I’m starting to do more with vertical phonics with him, and just need to make a date for daily short lessons (Penny Primer/TATRAS) instead of the less often lessons that we never get ahead in.

    My youngest is too young to read, but he’s ramping up in knowledge daily. He’ll turn 2 near the end of June. It’s my plan now with my experience with 2 easy reading learners and 1 hard case that I need to get this last one into the Penny Primer in a few years and keep at it right from the start (though I truly must stress I am not worried about my hard case boy, I know he’ll read when he’s ready, I just have to have him into the groove more to get online with it as SOON as he’s ready, and will do that from the very start with my youngest.)

    My idea of education is semi-Charlotte Mason, though I don’t have the dedication to such rituals and she espoused. I try and try and it’s just more than I’m want to push myself into. I have such a Romantic notion of what education is, something beautiful, full of knowledge and a love of learning everything, nothing in that old rote prussian school model way.

    I’ve had an education blog before, but I lost the host I had it on and didn’t put it back up when I got a new host. It wasn’t much in the first place, it’s more for my own motivation truly, but I want it for a record of what we do well, and it seems like it’s something that will be great, so this is to that end.

    I’ll write about things in our home school here, link to products and sites in posts and on the sidebar and pages. My children will have blogs as well as their own subdomains for web development. I’ll be putting together a front page with sections of fresh info pulled from subdomains later.