A Reading Journey

This is the story of how #3 son learned to read. He is pictured above working on his $65 car (who can resist a great deal?) and his vintage van is in the background (he will love that I included his van!) As I mentioned in my earlier post on reading  (here), #3 was a late reader ~ Well, I don't think he was late - he was right on time for his own development, but the rest of society probably considered him as late.  

I begin with a disclaimer: If I had not lived this myself, I would probably be somewhat skeptical, if not totally  incredulous. But I did live it, and it happened just as I describe it below. Also note eye sight and hearing had been checked and all was normal.

At 8 1/2 years old #3 son still had not mastered reading Hop on Pop, by Dr. Suess. The Sunday school teacher was concerned, my parents were concerned, friends were concerned ~ but I had providentially read Better Late Than Early by Dr. Raymond Moore, and I was peacefully not concerned. I have also always been grateful that my husband trusted me and also believed in Dr. Moore.  When I say #3 son could not even read one syllable, short vowel words, on a consistent basis, I am not exaggerating, but let's back up a bit and describe the process from the beginning.


From about age 5 I had begun formal work in the phonics book and some incidental workbooks. I never pushed and kept all sessions short - like 5 or 10 minutes short. This was all he could tolerate before frustration set in. Frustration and reading are not compatible, so I was keenly aware of his limits. In one incident in particular I remember riding down the road on an errand with him and thought this would be a good time to do a little phonics game. Looking around I said let's do the "D" sound. Door starts with "D". And went "Da - da - da - door!" and so on with 3 or 4 words. Then I said can you think of a "D" sound? He went, "Da - da - da - tree!" Game over for that day.

I was consistent and persistent for several years. We never progressed. He just didn't get it. During this time there were two things that I kept doing. First we never quit the little lessons. By keeping them to 5-10 minutes (actually I think some were about 2-3 minutes in length) he never learned to hate them and I never let on that they weren't going well. It was just what we did as part of our day. Phonics lessons were done about 3 times a week. The second thing I did was I read to him - lots and lots.

We couldn't stand still in all the other subjects and wait until he could read the information for himself, so I read to him from his books. I read the instructions. I read the subject matter. If he had to write answers he would say them to me and I would write them for him to then copy onto his papers. He could do his math if I read the directions to him. He could do penmanship because he was just copying. The only subject that he couldn't really do was spelling - and other than a few basic words like "God" and "the", we just let that go until he could read. (Note: today he is the best speller of all my children.)

He loved learning and was soooooo smart. He could do analytical thinking usually only attributed to children  5 or 6 years older than him. He devoured books on his favorite subjects. He selected piles and piles of books from the library on volcanoes, the Titanic, and automotive repair (yes, automotive repair manuals at age 6 and 7!) As I had time during the day I would read them to him for 15 to 30 minutes at a time - usually 2 or 3 times during each day. (Note: on the repair manuals I would just have him pick out selected parts he wanted me to read for him, I didn't read the whole book.) His speaking vocabulary was amazing (but he still couldn't read Hop on Pop!) Since his younger sister (aged 5) was also still a non-reader I usually combined their general classes and this worked well to keep them together for language arts, science, and history. Only math and phonics was individualized.

There are many details that cover these years, but it would be impossible to write on every scenario we faced. If you have a question feel free to ask and I will do my best to answer it. But let's move on to age 8 1/2.

One morning we were sitting at breakfast and I suddenly noticed that #3 son was reading the cereal box! I was thrilled and brought him Hop on Pop. He zipped right through it. I grabbed up 2 or 3 other beginner readers and he read them all. At that point he was tired of reading so we quit for that day. The next day I gave him a couple 2nd and 3rd grade readers and he whizzed through those. We repeated this on days 3 and 4, each time increasing the difficulty level. On day 5 he dug out an issue of "National Geographic Magazine" that we had lying around. It contained an article on the Titanic. He brought it to me and asked me to read it to him as he usually did. This time I said that he should read it for himself - and he did! Within a month he was reading any book he chose to pick up - including car repair manuals.

Just as Dr. Moore had said - when his brain was ready it suddenly unlocked all the keys to decoding written language. It had nothing to do with intelligence and everything to do with readiness. Because we had always read out loud to him, he had a great vocabulary. Now it was just a matter of linking up the spoken word to the written word, and with the keys all suddenly crystal clear, it happened at warp speed. My parents were delighted. Then they asked if his younger sister would learn to read like this as well! No - he was unique. The Princess learned to read bit by bit at a "normal" pace.

So there is the tale of the boy that learned to read in one week. I am so thankful for Dr. Moore!

Teaching Reading

People have written books on how to teach reading. College students take an entire class on how to teach the subject. Lifelong careers are based around it as well. What can I hope to contribute in one puny blog post? - not much, but I can give my testimony of how our family has walked this path to literacy.

It is my amateur opinion that one never actually "teaches" a student to read. You facilitate a means to help that student figure it out for him/herself. And to make it even more interesting we never really know when that reading "light bulb" will turn on. Some children learn the decoding as young as 2 or 3 years old; some much older. It is not uncommon for that "much older" to reach 10 or 12 years old. The only book that I feel ever really helped me understand the process is called Better Late Than Early by Dr. Raymond Moore.

In our home we kept learning to read fairly simple and never had the bells and whistles type of curriculum materials one can find on the market today. My basic tool was simply the little (quite beat up looking) book pictured above: A Handbook for Reading from the ABeka publishers. We just read a page at a time until it was mastered, then went to the next page. Total time spent on phonics: 3-5 minutes on 3 or 4 days a week.

As the child mastered a goodly amount of lessons in the phonics book, I liked to add in books from the McGuffey Reader series. We never did all the lessons in all the levels, but we did quite a bit of them. They reinforced our basic phonics rules, and they used fat, juicy words like "hath" and "glorious". The McGuffey Readers teach character, respect, and include God and his creation as a normal part of life. The children do not get bored with the stories, and it lends itself to some interesting discussions on their level.

During this process of learning to read it is very important for your child's vocabulary to grow at a significantly faster rate than their ability to read. By the time my children were 4 or 5 years old we were regularly reading beginner chapter books. Our fist chapter book has traditionally been The Boxcar Children. We moved on to favorites like Mr. Popper's Penguins and Dr. Doolittle in short order. In fact we often had 2 or 3 books at a time that I would read out loud to my children. Usually a chapter book, a nonfiction book, and a bedtime book were all peculating at their given time of day. It is very (VERY) important that you read out loud to your children every day. This is even more important if you have a late-blooming reader. (I will have a testimony about this in an upcoming post.)

So there you have it ~ in one blog post how I teach my children to read.

Left to Rust?

Sadly, I have done it too many times to count. We start a book with the best of intentions and a few days, ...weeks, into it, it gets laid aside - usually through neglect or perhaps the rush of the urgent. Now, six months (two years!) later said book is exposed from under the pile in which it was lurking. What do I do now?

It depends, but think it through. Should this just be relegated to the unused pile and leave it at that? Should we start over? Or just pick up where we left off? Usually I would never start over - that is so boring! Just because I don't remember the details doesn't mean that the kids are clueless. They usually remember much more than I do. We make a game of remembering - the kids almost always "win".

I have on a few occasions just not finished. Oliver Twist is one such example. It just got to be too much time and I lost interest. If the kids really want to know the story then they will some day pick it up and finish it on their own.