The Homeschool Journey

Is She Ready to Read or Not?

Something that is very important to ponder is the difference between teaching a child who is not ready for something and allowing a strong impulse in a child to unfold. I would hope that no parent who is interested in the healing benefits of Waldorf education would ever teach their tiny child how to read or write - but equally, would also hope that if they had a small one with an overwhelming desire to read that they would never prevent it. By that I mean take away books or pencils or say "no".

However, the danger that I often see with parents is the assumption that once a child shows an interest in something like writing that the parent assumes a certain progression and that "this is it - she is starting to read". If a 3 or 4 year old show interest in reading, it may well be that they want to spell their names or the names of people significant to them. They might want to read signs and the writing on a cereal box. But this does not mean that it's time to teach them their letters or to get out the readers! My almost 25 years experience with children in many different realms tells me that they do not, by and large, learn in a linear fashion. Learning takes place in cycles and in fits and starts -the elegance of homeschooling is that we can recognize these patterns and adjust our expectations to them. Then homeschooling becomes a case of shaping the curriculum to fit the child - and not the other way around.

Many, many tiny children go through a phase of wanting to read and/or write. If the parent remains neutral about it - giving them paper or spelling out words for them or writing things for them ONLY AS THEY REQUEST!! - then most children are satisfied and for a great many of them, the phase passes. Some might return to an interest when the parent introduces academic work in first grade. Others might take a few more years to become interested again.

And, of course, there are a number of children who teach themselves to read at 4 or 5. That's fine, too. Again, I would just leave it - neither encouraging nor discouraging. If this reading carries on I would still - perhaps especially! - recommend that one continue with a kindergarten routine - that no formal teaching or formal reading time be part of the kindergarten routine. If the child reads on her own - that's fine. She will need the support of the extra emphasis on nurturing her senses, strengthening her physical organism by powerful rhythms in the home environment and making sure that her head is not simply leading her body along. What one does not want is a child that burns out.

And that is the danger. It is not simply because Steiner said these things because he felt like it. He observed the effect of intellectual head-orientated work on the physical organism of the child and based his recommendations on that. He saw that the child until about 6 1/2 is busy making up his own physical form and "coming into" (incarnating for those of you who can deal with that term) his body and needed his life energy as it were ( the etheric forces that Steiner talks about) to be free to build a healthy vessel for the soul and for the later intellectual powers to enfold.

And we can see the effect of early intellectualism all around us - overstimulated, choice-burdened, early taught children who burn out at 9 or 10 and refuse to read, refuse to go to school, are put on medication, become apathetic or hyper.... the list goes on and on.

So I would say it's not a matter of "imposing" something on a child - no more than I think of it as imposing on my child that they can't eat too much sugar or that they can't run out into the traffic. Sometimes as parents we need, out of our experience and knowledge, to oppose something our child might seem to be interested in. Or - and I would say this is more often the case - intuit into what he is expressing, hear behind his words or actions and help meet his needs in a developmentally appropriate way. So much about learning to be a part of this world, of growing up has to do with health. For me this is the greatest power of Waldorf education - a way to understand the child and to enfold him in a way of parenting and educating that enhances his potential to be healthy - in mind, body and spirit.

I write in great length about this in my language arts book for those who are interested. Many of the audio downloads have a lot about these issues as well within a larger discussion of, for instance, kindergarten or first grade.

Playing with Language

(This article first appeared in The Homeschool Journey, December 2003)

 

I’d like to share a poem with you. I’d like you to read aloud the following poem (which many of you will probably know) and just relax into the words. For those of you whose first language is not English, don’t worry. It doesn’t matter a bit because the poem does not ‘make sense’ in English either.

 

Go on – read it out loud!

`Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
  Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:
All mimsy were the borogoves,
  And the mome raths outgrabe.

"Beware the Jabberwock, my son!
  The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!
Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun
  The frumious Bandersnatch!"

He took his vorpal sword in hand:
  Long time the manxome foe he sought --
So rested he by the Tumtum tree,
  And stood awhile in thought.

And, as in uffish thought he stood,
  The Jabberwock, with eyes of flame,
Came whiffling through the tulgey wood,
  And burbled as it came!

One, two! One, two! And through and through
  The vorpal blade went snicker-snack!
He left it dead, and with its head
  He went galumphing back.

"And, hast thou slain the Jabberwock?
  Come to my arms, my beamish boy!
O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!'
  He chortled in his joy.

`Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
  Did gyre and gimble in the wabe;
All mimsy were the borogoves,
  And the mome raths outgrabe.

 

                                     The Jabberwock, Lewis Carroll

 

 

So, what was it like to read it aloud? Did you feel silly? Was it fun? Did your five year-old run in demanding to know what you were doing? Good! Now read it to him! Play with the words. Draw them out. Exaggerate them. Fill them with meaning.

 

Now – explain to me why your (hypothetical) five year-old knows exactly what this poem is about. (And, for goodness sakes, don’t spoil it by asking her what she thinks it might mean) How does she know what it’s about?

 

With this wonderfully whimsical, outrageous, funny and preposterous poem, we adults can get a tiny little glimpse into the way children grow to understand language. The Jabberwock does not ‘make sense’ to us: but to a young child it makes as much sense as any well-written musical, poetical, image-laden piece of writing. Often with great writing, the ‘sense of it’ lies not only in its literal meaning but in its rhythms and ‘sense-sounds’ which create images in our minds.

 

When children acquire language, vocabulary and word-meaning, like grammar, are only a part of what’s going on. Young children acquire language by ‘getting a sense’ for meaning, not by literally analyzing what something means. When children are tiny, we don’t say things to them like, “Okay, this is a casserole. Can you say casserole – CASS-ER-OL. Good. It comes from the French word...” My goodness no! We just talk. We breathe life into our conversations with our children and they absorb meaning. This is how language grows and becomes part of each person and also why it’s vital to read to your child. Read to your child, read to your child! Read, read, read – way past the time he learns to read to himself. And read worthy, worthwhile books so that the images and language that penetrate his very soul are nourishing and sustaining.

 

Read that poem out again. Print it out and have a great time with it. Shout it, whisper it, dance it. Your baby will love it! Act it out. Encourage your child to draw a picture – or two or three – illustrating it. Just don’t ever, ever analyze it. Let it live, don’t put it on the dissection table!

 

Enjoy poetry with your children. We have a lovely ritual in our family, which occurs from time to time, called “Poems in Mama’s Bed”. We get in the big bed, cuddle up together, and I read my sons the same poems from the same book that we have been reading for almost ten years! The magic words of Blake, Emily Dickinson, R.L. Stevenson, William Carlos Williams and Shakespeare, amongst others, have penetrated right to the core of my children. Language, the Word, has power. Choose carefully what language you surround your growing children with and choose that which will nourish and strengthen them.

Composition - when?

Many people ask when is a child old enough/ready to write on his own. The following are some of my thoughts on this, based on a discussion with someone about her 9 year old and writing.....

 

If a child is not developmentally ready to do creative or independent writing, then asking him or her to do so can be an incredibly frustrating experience for that child. It's like people who get little ones to keep journals - how boring is it to keep writing what one had for breakfast?! A 9 year old is only just starting to separate, to stand on his own two feet - to go through that famous 9 year change spoken about in Waldorf circles.  If a child is encouraged to write too soon then he or she can wind up feeling that s/he has nothing worthwhile to say and that writing is a waste of time. How exciting it is to witness a child blossom into  a writer when she is ready!

 

By 12 or 13, the child is becoming an adolescent - is able to be somewhat reflective as she considers life and her experiences, has a stronger (and sometimes overpowering!) sense of self - it is out of this that creative writing flows. One has to be fluid in time, comfortable with living into the imagined thoughts of another, able to imagine a variety of situations, to be able to write out of oneself in a creative way - to make up stories that have substance, to imagine into different endings for characters.

 

Steiner recommended that when children begin to do their own composition at about 9 or 10 that they write about what IS. So examples of that can be simple (and some children will really go far with this) descriptions of say, a trip to the woods or a description of the cat. At 12 or 13 the child might start entering sympathetically into different historical characters (in my Roman history unit study, forinstance, I give several examples where a student could write about witnessing the murder of Julius Caesar or imagine being a soldier crossing the Alps with Hannibal etc etc).

 

By 14 or 15 the student should be able to write objectively (as I am teaching my social studies students at the Waldorf high school where I teach - I am constantly having to say to them "Your opinion is fine - but it must not be confused with facts!!") and really be comfortable working with various genres of creative writing and poetry.

 

So back to a 9 year old - I would really focus in having him copy what you write - whether it is your own well written composition or something (verses, quotations etc) from others. By doing this you are laying a firm foundation which he can then base his own future writing on. You will know when he is ready to write his own things - he will demand it!

 

Speaking and Reading to Little Ones

(Here's another reworked post of mine from my yahoo group, Waldorf_At_Home)

In this thread I have not been saying that we shouldn't talk to our children!! What I am saying is that there is balance needed - that parents who are completely focused on their children (child centered) instead of having a child inclusive approach (ie doing what they need to do and welcoming the children into that space and possibly including them) can tip the balance into a head-centered nervous approach with their children which can escalate into an unhealthy situation. Of course one talks to the children - as is clear in my kindergarten book - though I do believe many of us need to make room for more silence in our lives.

 

It's the difference between "Ok honey, what do you want to do today? I think we'll go to the park - but first let's clean up the living room and - oh dear - you don't want to do that? Ok - I'll clean up the living room and you put your dollies back - sweetie, don't scream like that - it hurts Mommy's ears - oh dear -- I 'm not sure we'll be able to go to the park now if you are still screaming...." As opposed to a mother who says (yes, speaks!) "Park day today! Here's the duster - dust, dust, dust! Can you do that? MY, you are a good duster - here's a spot you missed.....and sing sing sing as we work....la de dah de dah singing a work song or some other song" (ok - so that was pretty feeble - I wish you could see me act out the difference!). It's that the former is focused on the words - and the latter is focused on the doing - and of course there are words in the latter situation, but they are just jolly words that sweep the child along instead of putting the focus on the IDEAS of whether something is going to happen or not. So there's an issue here also about getting children to join in - give them something to imitate and nine times out of ten an under 7 will join in - give them a mouthful of words and you might just get a mouthful back!!

 

Of course verbal language is enormously important - that is why I emphasize in ALL my books the need to read, read, read some more to one's children - to sing and recite poetry and verses - and that this should come primarily via another living breathing human being and not a tv or tape.  Facial gesture, the human warmth - this is vital for the young child.

 

Further point - and when the child is very little, under 6 or so, I'd say that there should be far more DOING accompanied by warm speech than READING. The child needs to experience things first and foremost - to get things into his or her body and to use that body and its senses as the primary vehicle for learning. If we read too much to the little child, the information and images go in via the head - and do not get a chance to be soaked up, as it were, by the physical body. This, I would say, is  a huge reason for the vast amount of children we see in our society with various kinds of nervous disorders, whether they are seated primarily in the child's inability to concentrate or sit still, or to use his body in the way it's meant to be used. (obviously, it is not just the fault of reading too much to a child! But if there is a picture of a child who sits more than he is active, who receives via the mind and eye more than via the other senses and his physical body - then I would say balance has been lost and the scale is dangerously tipped toward an unhealthy situation).

 

So again - use language when you are around your young child! Absolutely! But carry it mainly via song and verse, and accompany it as far as possible with doing, with useful work that the child can imitate.

Spelling and Composition

(this entry originally appeared from me in response to  list members' question on our Waldorf_At_Home list)

 

It sounds to me like you have done a lot of research on this and that you have a lot of tools to work with - and you are so right - there are just an endless number of approaches to spelling! And I think that therein lies the key - familiarize yourself with these various approaches and be ready to jump in with the right one at the right time- and to abandon that and try something new when it seems right.

 

There isn't really one way that Waldorf schools approach spelling - Live Ed comes very close to approximating how the subject is usually approached. But any Waldorf teacher - as with any kind of teacher -worth his or her salt will be ready with a variety of approaches,depending on the needs of the children in the class. A good teacher - at school or at home - will look to see how her child learns - for many it is, as you say, a visual thing. I am someone who usually has to write out a word, to see it written to determine if it is spelled correctly.  Others do not need to do this.

 

But, but, but..... 9 is still, in my opinion and in my experience, very young to be too troubled about spelling. Back to what you had quoted me as saying, I really do believe that focusing on spelling (as well as grammar, capitalization and punctuation) VIA the child's own writing is the main way to go. And 9 is still a bit young for composition. Wait until her inner life, her selfhood is a bit further developed so that she has a bigger stock of experience and inner resources to draw upon. By about 11 or 12, if you've played your cards right, it is likely that she will have gotten over this "writer's block" entirely and will be really ready, developmentally, to write out of herself. It is not the tools such as spelling which will enable her to write (ie compose) - it is her developing self which will prompt this.

 

In the meantime, you do the composition - and use your writing as a gentle vehicle for things like punctuation - and you don't need elaborate stories - I am really coming more and more to a place where I feel something has gone a little haywire in some Waldorf circles and that there is too much "a story for everything" - by third grade or so, there really shouldn't be so many stories. I have been having interesting correspondence with Eric Fairman about this very subject. We both feel that somehow Steiner's indications for a teacher's creativity have been misunderstood as a need for the teacher to tell stories for everything!

 

So with punctuation for example, illustrate its need by taking care how you breathe when you read - take a breath when there's a comma - that's what it's for. Drop your voice when you come to a period - hang your voice when you come to a dash or a semi-colon. And when your daughter is

copying your writing, just point these things out in a simple sort of way - ( also including things like "Don't forget, we always use a capital letter for a person's name and at the beginning of a sentence")- and then she will develop an ear, a feel for correct punctuation. I can tell you as someone who teaches writing courses to older children and teens, having an ear, a sense for language paves the way for beautiful and fluent writing - knowing a  bunch of rules does not.

Homeschool Writing Group

I have started a little weekly gathering of homeschooled children at my home. We meet every Tuesday morning - there are four children, including my younger son and they range in age from 11 to 13.

 

The three who are not mine arrive at 9am - last week they were 15 minutes late and I had told them that they would be hung up by their toes and whipped with wet noodles if they were late again.... today they arrived 30 seconds early and we stood on the porch counting down to 9:00 on the dot, with loud, exuberant cries of "5...4...3...2...ONE!!!" as we got to the appointed time. Once coats are shed and backpacks scruffled through and laments shared about one child's new wheat free diet, we settle down around the dining room table.

 

"OK - what did we do last week?" I ask. Last week, we recall together, we talked about how good writing is lively, never boring and how we can use our senses to make our writing lively.

 

"We smelled things" remembers one boy - indeed - I had them sniff a variety of things (nutmeg, molasses, chutney, Italian herbs, liquid paper - carefully!! - the dog....)  and then come up with words that described the smell. No cut rate words like "good" or "spicy" were allowed - words like "pungent" "aromatic" and the like were what I was looking for.

 

Today we searched for words to describe our cat who has a fondness for writing classes - whenever I teach a class at home he always either sits in the middle of the children, observing them with a slightly patronizing aura, or settles down nearby, folded up, meditating on our lessons. He is a - "huge", "plump!", "no - that's not big enough - monstrous!" cat. In the end we settled on "monumental" as a fitting way to describe Sam.

 

Then we wrote sentences describing each other - it was lovely to see children whom their parents worriedly described to me as "not very happy about writing" or "I don't know if he'll come - he's ashamed of his spelling" - jump to pick up their pens and gleefully write their sentences ("shhhh... I need to think"). My one comment "Nothing offensive, please" drew chortles. Then I placed a very unusual chess piece on a stool for them describe. And last, I asked them to describe the dog's chew toy.

 

Then they read out what they had written - I do not yet look at this group's writing - I also had them read out their home assignments. One boy didn't even want to do that - so I asked if he would just tell us a bit about it. He was happy to do that and in the end actually wound up reading us his lovely description of his cat.   Practically falling over each other in their eagerness to get to read aloud, they shared delightful descriptions of "a boy hunched over his writing, concentrating fiercely" and "an ivory colored king ready to defend his stool" and "a pink and blue ball laden with bumps".

 

As cats seemed to be a theme for the day, I read them a delightful poem about cats. A moment's silence followed my reading - "oh yes, that's just like cats!" They sat quietly, thinking about cats.

 

We spent a few moments looking at their homework for next week - a fill in the blank assignment which seeks interesting ways of describing things plus a few short sentences which they need to write describing, among other things, the sight of a newborn kitten and the experience of walking across hot sand.

 

"Ok - 15 minutes break and then it's time for some geography." I say.

 

"Ok", they answer - "but we want to do some more writing". How satisfying for me to head toward the kitchen hearing them plotting,  "ok, let's write about the dog..."

 

 

 

Reading Readiness

The following is from my yahoo discussion group - it is obviously part of a thread but I thought there is enough that might be of interest here to warrant re-printing it.  

 

My experience tells me to be even more conservative than Dr J! My experience tells me that 7 is still too early for many children - and that all the symptoms Dr J lists are just as relavant at 8, 9 or 10 years old - especially if the child is a boy. I keep on beating this drum - but I can't deny what I've seen in scores of situations where children - again, usually boys but not always - "lag behind" in skills such as reading until they are about 9 or 10 (by which time they are receiving all sorts of intervention - much of which is not, I believe, necessary) and then suddenly they fly. It is shocking to most of us that kindergarteners are being pushed so young to read and that those who fail start acquiring labels such as ADHD - but I would argue that this is just as damaging for the many (though certainly not all) children as "old" as 8, 9 ,10 or even 11 years of age who cannot read or write without difficulty. And as Dr J has seen these labels fall off littlies thus "diagnosed", so I have seen the same thing happen with much older children when only the parents wait, relax, trust and support their children's learning pace.

 

Dr J speaks about the change at 7 that happens which prepares children to read - I see a change at around 9 or 10. And I am so grateful for the work of Raymond and Dorothy Moore which confirms this (I have lots of hands on experience but have done no research myself!). They talk in their books about the neurological changes that happen around the 9th or 10th year - and their experience also confirms that this seems to be the case more with boys than girls. Most "regular" homeschool resources carry their books - Better Late than Never is probably most appropos to this discussion!

 

As a committed anthroposophist, as someone deeply immersed in Waldorf education, I find that the curriculum and the methodology make such sense to me and are so healing to children - but I cannot overlook the fact that my experience points again and again to the "better late than early" approach to reading (and usually writing) - and late by Moore terms, not Waldorf terms! (forget what the rest of the educational establishment says!!)

 

Creating Good Readers

This article first appeared in the Homeschool Journey newsletter, May 2005

One of the most rewarding things a homeschooling parent can share with their child is a love for reading. As homeschoolers we can spend the time surrounding our children with song, verse, poetry and good literature from their earliest days, thereby paving the way for their later joy in written language. The following are some ideas and thoughts for parents to consider when thinking about their children’s reading and writing:

• It is absolutely necessary for young children to be surrounded by beautiful language from their earliest days. And the most important vehicle for that is your voice, singing, talking, reciting nonsense rhymes and so on. The inspiration comes, however, from Mother Goose, not Baby Einstein — this is an exercise in surrounding the child with language, not attempting to insert information into him or her.
• By reading poetry and high quality children’s literature to your child, you ‘imprint’, as it were, the patterns of imaginative, colorful, interesting and thoughtful use of language into your child’s being — again, not through pointing out clever usage of imagery or metaphor, but by simply letting your child develop an ear for good use of language (obviously, it is entirely appropriate to point out such things to an older child of, say, ten and up!).
• Some people believe that “any reading is good reading”. Pizza Hut book token programs and most of the Summer Reading programs at public schools and libraries which I have seen take this approach. I would say that this is not so — just as we would not let our children eat just any junk that came their way, so we help them make good choices about what they take in when they read.
• When we read aloud to older children, we can make an effort to read them books which they might otherwise not read themselves. Different genres, classics which seem a bit off-putting, epic poetry... When such reading becomes the focal point for long cozy sessions on the couch, then reading becomes associated with a wonderful, soul-enriching activity.
• Just as we know the difference in how a trashy supermarket novel affects us, so poorly written, dumbed-down books affect our children. Take care with what they read, and if they are struggling, then read aloud to them. Be especially wary of poorly written early readers as, in the name of simplicity, they are often not even written using proper sentences! And so they do not sound right to children who have been raised on good literature, thus creating frustration.
• If children are going to spend long hours reading and listening to stories, then, obviously, they need to be able to listen. Help your child develop his capacity to listen and to be still from earliest days by ensuring he is not overstimulated and that the rhythms of his life are slow-paced and predictable. A frantic pace of life, always rushing here and there, being surrounded by stressed out adults, is not conducive to creating a calm and peaceful child who has the inner strength to be able to be still and to listen.
• Do not interrupt stories and ask questions to your child when you read to her — this is how public school teachers and librarians who have story time are taught to read to young children. It is wrong. It interrupts the flow of the story, pulling the child out of the narrative, out of the pictures she is creating within herself as she listens. For those children who tend to be a bit flighty or easily distracted, this is disastrous!
• Likewise, if your child constantly interrupts you, asking you questions while you read to him or tell him a story, gently shhhh him and carry on. If he persists, tell him you can talk about it after the story is finished. Once you’ve managed to keep him quiet for a whole story, slowly wean him off the habit of questioning everything about the story by suggesting he think about it or asks the angels when he goes to sleep... Suggest he draw a picture based on the story or act it out with puppets. In this way, he will be encouraged to keep his internal dialog within himself and to begin to reflect on what he’s heard. Then, when a question truly needs to be asked, he will be able to do so after a bit of thought and not merely react.
• By telling stories, as opposed to only reading them, one also helps a child develop the capacity to create mental images and follow along with the narrative. The story goes in deeper and becomes the child’s ‘own’. Further, the child experiences you as a creative person who has something to share, that stories are told by everyone, not just by people who write books.
• Again, another possibility, whilst working to develop a child’s capacity to make inner pictures, is to choose mainly children’s books with very plain or no pictures. Obviously, we all enjoy the beautiful illustrations created by the many talented children’s writers and illustrators, but do give your child the opportunity to create her own (inner) images rather than always depending on another’s. An example from my family is how I read each of my sons, when they were in 4^th Grade and then 5^th Grade, the wonderful stories from D’Aulaires’ Norse Gods and Giants and then Greek Mythology. As those familiar with the work of the D’Aulaires know, their illustrations are hugely colorful, powerful and wonderful. No one seeing Freya in the former book or Zeus in the latter could carry any other image of those gods than those illustrations: and so I read the stories to my boys and did not let them see the pictures until after each had completed his own Main Lesson book. Then we enjoyed the D’Aualaires’ books together! (By the way, I kept my sons apart for these blocks as well — but that’s another story!)
• Do check our list of Great Read-Aloud Books   on our website: http://www.christopherushomeschool.org/great_read-alouds.htm
• Lastly... read, read, read out loud to your child! As those of you who have my Waldorf Curriculum Overview know, I spend a lot of time discussing language arts and a lot of time urging parents to READ OUT LOUD TO YOUR CHILDREN. You cannot possibly to too much if this. And please carry on well into your child’s teens.