Another exciting development is Seven's reading--yes, he's reading! He's still in the emergent stage, but is showing more interest and finally PRIDE as he recognizes words and reads familiar texts. This is such a tricky issue for me, as I have to keep myself in check--the public school teacher thinking, "where should he be by state standards?" and the TEACHER, knowing that in the most literate countries in this world, formal reading instruction begins just about now (ages 7 and 8), and that the most critical aspects are confidence and motivation. When parents talk about their 3 year olds that are reading, it's nice, but I also know that the overwhelming majority of those readers plateau at about this age, and read at the same grade level as their early start peers. So is there an advantage to early reading? Maybe in some ways, but at what cost? What parts of the brain are NOT developing because they are so focused on reading skills? We never ask that question in public ed, and it's a really important one to consider. There are clear deficits in our students--yes, even early readers, executive function is a big one--HUGE actually, and I am not afraid to say that more attention to the development of other parts of the brain (rather than the sole literacy focus), would serve all students much better. But I'm sure the federal and state policy makers know better, right? And of course, the big corporations that make zillions off reading programs are only motivated by their deep desire to help kids learn to read--not the fat checks they collect from school districts as they update their "perfect, one size fits all" programs in a box. HA!
So we are reading, and working on measurement, number sense, scientific observation, recording data and using it to learn about living things, and we are playing--A LOT. And through this play, I am assessing growth and learning, in a way I just could never do in a classroom of 20+ primates.
Today we are continuing our fall celebrations with a focus on Halloween--my favorite holiday! more later!
Here are a couple visuals from recent adventures:
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| celebrating fall in the city--yes, we have leaf piles too! |
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| observing geese at the apple orchard |
Nature Class sounds fabulous and yeah for SEVEN for starting his reading journey :) I am so with you, my sister in-law who was home schooled had no interest in reading until age 7 and from that point on there was no stopping her (as long as she was reading something of interest...DRACULA in 7th grade). I wish public schools could be more patient and focus less on these skills until the second grade. It is so frustrating for those poor kids who develop later to see their peers reading chapter books. I feel this frustration for most kids then leads to a path of feeling inadequate in school and the effort that might have been put in is not put in...I saw this over and over in my classroom. It was as if they gave up before they even got going....and it was everything I could do to cheer them on at their speed and celebrate their accomplishments. This is why I loved MI so much, we were able to celebrate and recognize every students strengths and would help each student to identify the individual things they wanted/needed to work on. After all there are skills we all need to work on! TIME and PATIENCE is what is lacking in public schools.....also FREEDOM.
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