Houston, We Have a Reader!

  Our sweet 6 year old has made tremendous progress in reading in the last couple of months, and is now a moderately fluent reader.

  I'm not a reading teacher and indeed have never had any instruction on how to teach a child to read, except for the homeschooling books I've pored over.  I've thus far successfully taught 6 kids to read, and that is one of my greatest homeschooling accomplishments.

  Angela went from sounding out each word painfully, to sounding out some words painfully, to now reading simple books easily and quickly.  She is still a long way from a GREAT reader, but she's gotten to the fluency stage where she doesn't have to think through every word. I love it!

  So far, my girls have learned to read more easily than my boys.  One of my "soapbox" beliefs is that children develop at different rates.  It is ridiculous and harmful to assume that "every" 5 year old can memorize the sounds of letters, and "every" 6 year old should read a particular level.  A child may not have any problem with reading, but just need more time. But if that child is pushed hard and gets frustrated with reading, it can cause long term problems.

 Of course there ARE genuine reading difficulties like dyslexia and eye issues.  But sometimes a child just needs TIME to intellectually develop so that she or he can read.

  Life gets easier for me as a homeschooling teacher once my kids are reading well, so I'm thankful none of them have been really late readers -- though both of my boys were close to 8 before they were fluent.

  I also have a little break for the first time since I started homeschooling, because Sarah and Angela are more than 3 years apart whereas the first 6 kids had about 18 month spacings.  So for a year I won't need to work on phonics readiness unless Sarah is especially precocious.  So far, she is content to be a happy 3 year old and is not particularly interested in learning letters.

 Back when Naomi and Lydia were small, I did work with them when they were 3 years old, and indeed Lydia actually sounded out words at the age of 3 and Naomi was a very young 4 year old when she started reading a bit.  Sarah, being the 7th child, isn't getting that kind of devoted instruction. And that is fine.  Maybe better.