P-O-O-P spells poop

I've mentioned before that we love John Holt's work and love everything about organic learning. This means we skip the teaching/quizzing in our house. First, even were we not Holt inspired, P hates to be "taught," he likes to discover or request :) And second, if a child is quizzed about something they don't know, you've just put them on the spot (real nice, I always love my inadequacies pointed out...). If they do know the answer (and you do too) then what's the point in asking (really? Morbid curiosity? Judgment? ) We trust P's curiosity implicitly and know from his Endless Questions that knowledge acquisition is a constant for him. So we're satisfied we're supporting him - and he's respected and retains his fire. Sure, to some, unschooling sounds like an invitation to call CPS, to us, it just sounds right.

Adding to many people's discomfort, unschoolers are often a late reading breed. Waldorf schools famously don't focus on reading until second grade, and ages 8-9 seem to be a pretty typical starting point for organic learners. By then, the world's words have inundated a kid's consciousness enough for reading to be natural and non-intimidating. I had half assumed that P would fall into this late reading category since he hasn't shown much obvious interest (ie direct questions). (The last time I blogged about reading (I think!) was over a year ago, here: P reads ) So, these days, I merely knew he loved to announce trains as they came into the station and ask the Occasional question. "The "F" train, Mama! Yay!! We wanted the "F!"" Other than that, we enjoy reading, A Lot, and trust that he'll read when he wants to.

And then, as I was washing dishes a couple of days ago, P grabbed his Wish List to the Universe off of the fridge and asked me to read it. I told him I'd be done in a few, would he mind waiting? After a short pause, I heard this:

"D-I-N-O-S-A-U-R ... that spells dinosaur!"

I turned around (honestly, mouth agape) and there he was, pointing at the word dinosaur. Whadyaknow? He was beaming with success and I beamed back seeing his smile. That little piece of competency was apparently what he needed. He pulled me into the playroom blackboard and instructed me to write other words for him. We went with a few faves: car, cat, zip, dinosaur, no, yes, stop, BB, crunch, boo and book. With each word he smiled from ear to ear and read them, first to me, then to BB. He took some chalk and slowly measured out a p, then an o, then another o and then asked what it said. I told him and he screamed to BB, "BB, I wrote "poo"!!!" We chuckled, and eventually it came out that an extra "P" would make it poop and he scribbled that on like lightening. Then he tossed up the word "pie" and read all of his new acquisitions over and over to BB.

The next morning, he requested we erase and repeat his words on the chalkboard first thing. Once they were all moved to new locations, his proficiency dropped a titch, but he still knew almost all of the words and asked to add a few new. Then he was Done and moved on.

Or so it seemed. As we rested on the couch this afternoon (up late last night, up early this morning...) he grabbed his well loved carpenter's ruler and requested I make letters out of it. Its a game he discovered with Ethan a month or so ago that grew out of P's habit of making letters with a necklace chain in lieu of chalk. Its a fabulous challenge, really :) He cackled as I struggled with the letter "B" and chanted our way through all 26 shapes. Miniscule Imaginary BB was instructed to climb to the top of each completed letter and jump off, with the Hollywood Sign sized letter then collapsing onto the tiny monster amidst crashing sounds and roars of laughter.

After some train play and snacks, his exhaustion ruled out moving around and even books ("no thanks, mama") and he favored a video. As he sat and asked endless questions about vocabulary and the character's emotional reactions, he simultaneously manipulated the ruler into letter after letter. He discovered how "M" and "W" are one another, just turned upside down and, Wow! "V" is half of a "W" and almost an "A" turned upside down and on and on and on. His hands aren't quite coordinated enough yet to write the letters perfectly (his preference :) so the folding and turning wood helps him accomplish his goals. And, honestly, its sheer brilliance. I can practically see the synapses firing; angles, proportions, right vs left, curves vs straights etc. But, best of all, he Owns it. He discovered his way to learn letters comfortably - rather than double lined paper and boring repetition of shaky lines, weak imitations of perfection, that would frustrate the holy heck out of him.

This has seemed (to me) to unfold rapidly over the last few days. And then I realized that what he is driven to read (subway signs, exit signs, toy names :) etc), he has already been sight reading for a while. It just seemed so natural that it was almost unnoticed. It took a big word surprise like "dinosaur" to really jump start our reading journey - to make him comfortable enough to invite me along. But sans priming and pressure, I'm interested to see if an expansive interest holds out. I'd guess extensive reading is still a Long way off for P. He likes the "idea" of perfecting anything, but requires innate inspiration to do so. A really strong internal drive to read to himself just isn't present quite yet. He'd much rather snuggle while I read to him than sit by himself (um, the child doesn't want to sit or stand by himself to do Anything, why start with an enjoyable group activity like book reading? :) At any rate, it was exciting to discover that we've actually started the reading journey and that he is so very excited about it. Now if I can just make sure that My excitement doesn't ruin his, it will all be well :)