DIARY OF A HOME EDUCATING NOBODY.

Of all the subjects we worry about I suspect reading must be the one we worry about the most. Most particularly when it isn’t happening!

It’s certainly worried me over all the years it wasn’t happening! Especially when it seemed to be happening for everyone else’s children.

But now I’ve got beyond those years, now I’ve stopped worrying and realised that my child can usefully read at long last, I can see that not one second of that worrying did any good at all. It didn’t change a thing. It didn’t make her read any faster. Neither did any of the strategies and schemes I employed, the encouraging, the deviously running reading past her in the hope she wouldn’t notice, the pushing, bribing, and threatening. None of it had any positive effect. In fact, all this anxious worrying very nearly had the opposite effect. It very nearly put her off for life.

Now, in glorious hindsight, I have learnt something. I have learnt that it doesn’t matter what scheme you use or strategy you employ, the reality is that each child is an individual. And each individual takes to reading in their own individual way. At their own individual AGE! And no amount of pressure or ‘teaching’ from you is going to alter that, however much you cunningly disguise it! You simply cannot get children to read sooner rather than later if they are not reading ready.

Not everyone believes this! Most particularly those parents with children who read easily and early and progress steadily from there onwards. Those people tend to believe that their children read because they taught them well!
Well – they can believe what they like. And I’m not writing this for them anyway. I’m writing this for all of you who haven’t got a child like that, who have children who are getting older, past infancy and primary stages, perhaps into double figures and yet who still are not fluently reading, making you extremely anxious. For I know what it’s like. That’s what I’ve just been through with my youngest and I can tell you now that it has taken her till nearly teen-hood to get to the stage where I’m confident that, although she still never ‘settles down with a book’, she can usefully read! And I’m pretty sure your child will come to it too.

But you will need to have faith because it might not be in the same way as others did. It might not happen till even later. It might happen that they never really take to reading books for pleasure. But then, it’s not necessary that every child reads in the same way, at the same time, and gets the same out of it. It helps to remember that!

I’ve witnessed many children learning to read, both in school and out of it. And I know that learning to read, as with all learning, is completely different for everyone. And no matter how much you think that one reading scheme, tactic or method is the answer, it is not. For however many children it works for, there will always be someone for whom it doesn’t. And the important point to understand is that the problem is with the method, NOT the child. For some children, their way of reading is so individual it takes an enormous leap of faith to go with it.

I have seen some young children take to reading like they take to eating sweets! I have seen others take to it in a slow, progressive, satisfying curve. I have seen children for whom reading appears totally alien at the start then suddenly it magically clicks. And I have seen bright, intelligent, enthusiastic children who are capable and clever at so many subjects yet cannot seem to manage to learn to read in the way we would expect them to. Who clearly see and interpret print in such an individual way that to read a book in the way many of us do, and find it enjoyable, is just impossible.

Which brings me to another important point; the ability to read – or not – is NOT a direct reflection of a person’s intelligence – or lack of it!

There are many highly intelligent, articulate and successful adults in this world who do not read easily. Who do not enjoy reading. Or get from it what others do. But that does not mean they are unintelligent. That’s just they way they are.

When I read ‘The Gift Of Dyslexia’ by Ron Davies it made me feel quite inadequate! And it made me feel like that simply because I can read, and am not dyslexic, (not so you’d notice anyway – thanks to Spellchecker!), but consequently neither do I have other special gifts that dyslexics have, which made me feel quite average and unspectacular!
And when I read ‘A Little Edge Of Darkness’, by Tania Faludy about her dyslexic son, I really had an insight into how it is possible to learn in a different way.

Which is another point to keep in mind when you feel anxious about your child’s education: all the different ways that there are to learn. One of those being learning even without reading if need be. Learning DOES happen, even without print.

And remember; differences do not have to equal difficulties.

The trouble with labelling our learning differences, dyslexia being one of them, is that we immediately try to ‘fit’. And that causes difficulty in itself. Obviously having guidelines and suggestions from others who have differences you recognise can be extremely comforting and supportive. But the best attitude to have towards all our differences is to keep our minds open. Keeping our mind open, open to individual learning routes, is the best thing we can do.
I believe that reading is a very personal thing. As is all learning. Despite educational professionals trying to make us all fit! And I believe that despite differences, difficulties, dyslexia or whatever you want to call it, children eventually find their own way in the world of reading.

What is essential is that children don’t get put off reading by our own clumsy attempts to push it on them, in our way, in our timescale, before they are ready. Like I did!

Some children, like mine, are not ready to read for a long time after everyone else is. They aren’t ready to read for a long time after we might be ready for them to read! And they aren’t ready to read for a long time after the relatives are ready for them to read either!

I tried all sorts to get mine to read. I tried scheme books. I tried lots of lovely stories with small amounts of print and lots of images. I tried magazines. I tried single word cards and games. I tried all sorts of sneaky tactics I thought she wouldn’t notice but of course she did, being the intelligent person she is. And I’m convinced now that little of this had an effect. In fact, if I’d stopped all this and left her to it she probably would have come to reading quicker. Because all my interference probably created resistance and nearly put her off.

All our interference also overlooks an important fact that we tend to forget: children will WANT to read!

Reading is part of our culture. Like computers, mobile phones, driving. Children want to do what we do. And they go mad to do it. Reading books may not be the way children come to reading. But what does it matter. Perhaps learning to read via books is out-of-date. To be able to use the computer they are going to want to decode what those irritatingly little boxes say! Like with pressing buttons – they’re going to want to have a go.

My child has gradually developed various tactics and strategies of her own to help her over the difficulty of decoding print. And it’s taken years for her to do it. But I’m confident that, while reading strategies come and go with the experts, her own strategies will last her a lifetime. For however many tricks we teach our children to perform as we try and teach them to read, the learning that sticks with them is the learning that comes from them. It really is not something we put there. However much some of us like to think that it is!

Looking back, the one thing that I would say that we can do for those children who are learning to read differently from everyone else has nothing at all to do with strategies. It has nothing to do with tactics. Or diagnosis. Or special books. It would be something that is easily available to all of us, although many adults find it very difficult to do!

The one thing that we can do is simply give those children TIME!

Ross Mountney.