Learning and Forgetting

I finally started Frank Smith's "The Book of Learning and Forgetting" last month. I don't agree with everything he writes (and wish his research base was better annotated) but I'm finding myself pleasantly surprised at the novelty of some of his theories and how I see them play out in our house. In fact, his thoughts on learning to read smacked me in the face yesterday...

A month ago, P and I read the book "Gimme cracked corn and I will share". Despite seriously adoring the illustrations, the book was, well, seriously annoying. Every page was a pun, which flew right over the Little Man's head. The story was sweet enough, the pictures beautiful, but I just couldn't stop myself from making the "ta da da da" sound after every page. Have you ever tried to explain multiple puns to a five year old who's sense of humor rarely extends beyond torturing a small pink monster? Its not for the sleep deprived, let me tell you.

After reading it, we moved on and I buried it beneath better books. Yesterday, while preparing to return said books to the library today, the Little Man laid eyes on the dancing corn and requested I read it again. I zoomed through the book, the past month's rest unable to magically morph it, and started to shove it back into our bag. "Wait, Mama. Doesn't the pig think they grow on eggplants? You didn't read that part."

I looked back through the book and, lo and behold, the pig has a quote about eggplants. It had been thirty days since I read this book and I had only retained a vague recollection that I didn't enjoy it (in fact, I even snuffled at the egg roll joke like I'd never heard it before....)

But it did make me remember Frank Smith. His theory on reading (pitifully watered down) is that first you are reading for the child (the baby is looking at you, watching you read). Then you are reading with the child (the child is looking at the book with you.) And then, finally, "As British educator Margeret Meek would say, children at that point are no longer relying on a nearby adult for reading; they have trusted themselves to authors... the child knows the words and the author shows the child how to read them - as effortlessly and inconspicuously as the child learns 20 words a day of spoken language."

In case my short summary is, um, too short ;) he's not saying that the third step is suddenly the kid kicking it with Mo Willems over cocoa, just that the child eventually trusts the flow of the book, knows the words, even if an adult is still doing the "reading," which will naturally become unnecessary. Its a totally "unschooly" approach to reading, and so far, seemingly supported by the evidence in this one household :) The Little Man heard the book a month ago, remembered the funny line the author created for him, and was looking for it in the book yesterday. He couldn't read it, in the official sense, yet he was "reading" the book, as Smith points out, in a classical sense; he was translating a puzzle. The pictures, the story line, the juxtaposition of the two and how they formed new understandings in his wee brain, its a type of reading, like reading the stars, reading someone's expression, reading a map. I was reading with him, and he was trusting the author. I don't know if this is making any sense :) but it was a fun lightbulb moment for me :)