No words, only photos.

While sorting out my blog posts, I came across this post. It was written some time in July last year, but for some reason I never published it. No words, only photos.

 

Today my daughter read a book.

And later:

"Where's my book? I want to read it again"

So? I hear you say. What's so special about that?

My daughter is 9.

I've been waiting a long time.

Now that the madness of term-time has passed...

...the kids are rediscovering the lounge for activities other than tv and IGCSE homework.

Tv off, heater on, dog snoring, and ds2 starts a Michelle Paver book from the Ancient Chronicles series. It's only 2 or 3 years since he was given the books (!)

Looking forward to more quiet days...

And what else...

...has been happening with the children for the past few weeks (apart from all the art!)

Ds1 plays drums at Rock School for a week. (The staff praised him on his talent and were gobsmacked he'd never had any lessons - just a teeny proud mum moment :) ). Meanwhile ds2 went rollerblading in the local park, and dd went for playdates with her friends.

We go to a local festival, held at a large allotment. Dd stays at the festival with friends for the rest of the day, while we made our way home.

We pick courgettes from the garden. (Note the closeness of the yellow football. Plants in our garden have to be hardy to survive!)

Ds1 continues with his IGCSE chemistry and Geography reading

  Blackberry picking, to make crumble and wine.

Ds2 empties the counties' libraries of books about manga. Then teaches himself.

He makes a short list of equipment he needs to do animation 'old school', then goes onto the internet to do a price comparison.

 Ds2 decides he wants to make shortbread.

We move paving slabs to make a base for the new chicken coop that we're making out of a packing case that was being thrown out (our 10 hens need more space).

 And discover a huge ants' nest:

 Lots of reading - Guinness World Records, British History, The Aztecs, and a 4-inch tome called "3D Game Development"...

Lots of talk and plans for the kids' new Minecraft server:

 Thoughts on design:

We took down our posters and information about Australia and New Zealand:

 And replaced them with posters on space and art:

We started a chart of moon phases. The moon decided to hide behind cloud for the next three nights :)

The children caught flies and fed them to the garden spiders, overcoming their fear of spiders and experimenting with size and type of fly.

We walked to the park intending to pick blackberries. But came home with elderberries for wine.

 Swimming in the lake (bit chilly, but fine once we got over the initial shock!)

And catching crayfish

Ds2 took the screwdriver to the waterpistol to try to fix it.

Wine, all bottled up and fermenting happily under the piano.

Dd and I have a discussion about wine-making, fermentation, yeast, gas and the similarities with the chemistry of bread baking. So that's chemistry, biology, self-sufficiency and home economics in one 5-minute conversation.

Dd continues on her reading journey. Having finally decided she wanted to learn to read (or at least was willing to give it a go), in a matter of weeks she has gone from simple words like cat and bed to reading words like 'couldn't' and 'everyone'. She seems to have an excellent memory for sight-recognition of words, less tendency I think towards phonics deciphering. Each of my children has been different and found their own combination of what works for them. I haven't been teaching her. I just sit with her while she reads. She'll do it at her own pace when she wants to. Being, at the peak of "reading readiness" (which she, herself, has recognised) I expect there'll be no stopping her now.

Reading: The crapness of knowing 'the buck stops here'.

Ok, I need someone to tell me it is ok to have an 8 year old who can't read.

I am tired of people with children who taught themselves to read age 4 telling me that my child will get there in the end. Hey, oh parent of genius, what do YOU know?

I am tired of people who say 'Oh, I know how you feel. My daughter is only just reading too.' I look at their child who is a good two years younger than mine and think If you speak to me again I will impale your eyeballs on the ends of my fingernails.

I am also tired of the smug looks from home edders who structure their child's every moment and have rigorously taught (or perhaps forced?) their child to read every day since they were an infant and now have a gloating air every time their small child has their nose in the literary equivalent of war and peace. I so hope it costs you a fortune in therapy sessions years later when your child realises their life was ruined by a control freak.

I am tired of surprised looks from people when my daughter tells them she can't read. You don't believe her so you want to ask me as well? Or are you just hard of hearing? Perhaps you'd like me to shout it so EVERYONE can hear?

And I am really fed up with the way such people raise their eyebrows at me as if to say 'Really? Can't you EVEN teach your child to read?' If a monkey like you has managed to learn to speak then obviously I'm not hooked in to the right miracles.

And today I was tired of a small sprat of a boy who was laughing at my daughter when I was encouraging her to read a couple of words from a book in the library
'That is soooo easy!' I heard him snigger to his sister as they walked off.
Be thankful small evil one that I am self-controlled. Smacking a kid in the face may not be appropriate behaviour for an adult, but I am not known for my appropriate behaviour.

And I was cross with myself that his response then triggered me sit next to my 8 year old at home and make - yes make - her read a few words from a book that she simply wanted to enjoy listening to me read. Like this is going to help. Yeah. Go on mother, take a leaf out of the BAD book. You know you want to.


Ok. So most of the time I am alright about my daughter not being able to read and with my daughter not wanting to learn to read. And I'm even more alright about it if I'm careful about the company I keep (geniuses and prospective geniuses, hot-housing parents, and smug bastards, not invited to tea).

But today I am not ok with any of it and it makes me feel crap that it matters.


Yes, I can tell myself it is not unusual for home ed children to read at their own pace. I have heard many stories of home ed children not reading until they are 11 years old. But their child is not MY child and I am not that parent. Sure, dd can read a few words (at a push) when persuaded/bribed/skewered and roasted over a spit on a slow-turn. But that's not reading. At least not the sort of reading I want to encourage in my family. I don't want to be the sort of parent who makes their child read.

Yes, I can tell myself this is a momentary loss of HE confidence and that, as usual, it will pass.

Yes, I can tell myself she will get there in the end. But truth is, nobody knows whether any child will get there in the end. I have a 12-year-old who today was struggling to orientate himself around the automated library machine, because even after all my support over the years he still has problems processing text. A 12-yr-old who struggled to read out loud a short geography question today (and who because of the difficulty in processing what he was reading, hadn't got a clue what the question was, even after reading it three times).

Truth is, I know school would not have solved the problem. I know school most likely would have made the problem worse, or caused other problems. But being a home educator, sadly THE BUCK STOPS HERE.

And it aint pleasant.

Friday: Home Things

People often ask what we do for home education; what our weeks are like. 'But how do you make them sit down and do work?' They ask.

Well. Most of the time they don't do 'work'. And they certainly don't spend much time at the table, unless it is to eat, to draw, make models or do some other child-directed activity.

So if you look at my past few blogs you will see a few of the things we did last week. Not every week is like this, but I guess it's fairly representative of how we do home education.



And so to Friday...

Friday is a 'home day'. Usually we tidy up, clean rooms, potter in the garden, bake, go to the library, and generally pursue our own interests. Of course you can label these activities however you like. For us everything we do has value, simply because we have chosen to do it.


Last week, this was our Friday.


Dd playing on her ds (literacy, IT, problem solving skills)

Ds1 writing a storyboard for his latest film (art, literacy, drama, media studies)

Metal detecting in the garden... (archaeology, physical education, history)

Lego modelling (design and technology)

Ds2 with his nose in a book (literacy, pure pleasure)

The tidying, undone (hey, what the hell):

A day of treasures:

(Check out my previous posts for Tuesday-Thursday)

Not reading? Don't Panic!

Was sent the link to this blog entry on the Tiny Grass blog; a post from earlier this year on child-led reading.

As a parent of a 7-yr-old non-reader (or rather, a not-yet-showing-any-inclination-to-read 7 yr old) I am always reassured to hear other parents' encouraging words on the subject.

I consider myself privaleged in the world of home education for I have had personal proof that reading really can happen without intervention. I've had the benefit of seeing my middle child teach himself to read when he was 6 years old (though 'teach' is a very misplaced word in that sentence, it was far more an osmotic process, a neglect of intervention).

This helps me keep the faith; enables me to thicken my skin against the parents who insist on giving me a check-list of their child's literary achievements every time I see them. I don't care if little Jonny was reading age 4 and at age 7 was happily digesting Harry Potter at a rate of one novel a day.

Er...actually that's a lie. I do care, but only enough to want to smack the other person. 'Home Ed Hag Hits Pushy Parent with Tescos-own White Loaf' - not a good headline, so I must resist.

So, this article, helps. Just a little.

"Basic Formula for Parents:

Stay out of child’s way +
Don’t try to be a teacher +
Don’t hijack your child’s learning +
Wait….wait…wait (and be patient) +
Don’t stress (talk to other unschoolers when you worry!) +
Read lots of books out loud when your child wants to +
Have lots of interesting books available +
Be ready as a resource when you child asks for it
____________________________________________________

= A child that reads. Eventually. On his own timetable."


_______________________________________

P.S. If you do nothing else today,
Do do do vote for Grit's Day in The Brilliance in Blogging shortlist here (it's under the 'make a difference' category).
I've even found large text and coloured font to highlight this...that shows how important it is - vote NOW!!!
Get home ed noticed (and, besides, it's a fab blog).

A serious case of "Excerptitis": please define and analyse, using full sentences. Marks will be deducted for incorrect spelling and grammar.

Just found this from earlier on this month:
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/education/article6819979.ece


An obsession with “excerptitis” in primary schools means young children rarely read a whole book, research suggests today.

A quarter of primary school children read just one complete book a year in the classroom, and do not discover the endings of classics such as Treasure Island or Goodnight Mr Tom.
Instead they are frequently given passages or “bite-sized” extracts of books to read. The survey found that one in eight primary school teachers had never read a whole book with their class.
A lack of time caused by the pressure of squeezing many subjects into the curriculum is thought to be to blame.

Michael Rosen, the poet and former Children’s Laureate, said: “I think of it as an illness called excerptitis. The consequence of excerptitis is boredom. We have bored thousands of children and put them off reading. I mean, what a tragedy.

“This research shows that in thousands of classrooms children are not reading books or talking about books, I think it will shock the public that so few whole books are being taught in class.
“There are going to be children who will only be taught about three or four books as part of their literacy education in the whole of their primary careers. For the thousands of children who don’t read books at home, it is a travesty. That’s three books they might have come across in the whole of their infant lives.

“The idea that children can’t manage whole stories or whole books is a nonsense,” Rosen added. “No extract in the world has the power of books. Extracts deny children the meat of the story.”
The survey of more than 500 primary staff and 1,000 parents of schoolchildren was commissioned by Heinemann, an educational publisher. It claims to be the first wide-scale research into the use of whole books in literacy teaching.

Researchers said that, if the findings were extrapolated to all primaries across the country, it would mean 600,000 children would never read a book in class with their teacher. More than 1.1 million would study only one whole book a year.

Teachers said books not finished in class included The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, and Roald Dahl’s popular novels.

Half of teachers could think of at least one occasion where pupils were left ignorant about the narrative of a novel, because teaching the whole book was not a priority in class.

Almost 85 per cent said children missed out on finding out “what happens next” because they did not read a whole book.

Three quarters of teachers said children’s “reading stamina” and concentration levels were being damaged by the lack of whole book reading.

Nearly two thirds of teachers feared the absence of teaching literacy using entire books could turn children off reading. One in five said they had seen evidence of this already, with many believing there was a greater negative impact on boys.

State primary classes were almost twice as likely to not finish a whole book as their independent school counterparts - 13 per cent compared with just eight per cent in private schools.

Michael Morpurgo, the children’s author, said: “When a book is written, it’s written whole.
“The point of a book is that it should be fun, it should be exciting, it should tell you more about the world around you, it should open your eyes and open your heart, it should make you joyful, it should make you sad - and you can't get this from just taking little snippets from it.”

Classic books remembered most fondly by parents in the survey were Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, The Hobbit, Stig of the Dump, Swallows and Amazons, and Watership Down.

'How secondary schools stop kids being creative...'

This little article makes interesting - though not surprising - reading. I expect a reasonably intelligent person would find similar creativity-crushing influences in a primary school if they knew what they were looking for.

About 4 years ago I read an article by an author/researcher who believed that the restriction on weapon/hero/adventure play in nurseries and schools was stifling boys' creativity. When I discussed it with someone at the time, they thought it was a total overexaggeration. I'm not so sure; I remember the time when my nearly-5 year old ds1 decided to stop drawing aeroplanes after one of the private nursery staff told him he mustn't draw guns on it. Considering he'd barely lifted a writing implement until a few months previous, it was such a frustratingly annoying thing and my heart went out to my little boy.

Anyway, back to the article in the blog title...I've snipped a bit of the original, to give the gist of it:

'How secondary schools stop kids, especially boys, being creative - by a top children's author' The Times Online 9 Febhttp://timesonline.typepad.com/schoolgate/2009/02/how-secondary-s.html


"To be creative, you have to be wrong most of the time. Unfortunately, being wrong doesn’t go down very well at school. In fact, I think creativity is being educated out of kids when they get into Secondary School, and it’s a big problem....

...I often get the impression that teachers are drawn to the ideas from their girl pupils, whereas the imaginative world of the boys seems mysterious – sometimes even dangerous. I can sympathise with teachers who are afraid to be seen to be encouraging violent thoughts. But most boys’ imaginations run most quickly to two extremes: the violent and the absurd. I happen to think that’s exciting, but teachers seem to want to foster creativity within certain ‘safe’ parameters. Creativity is not safe.

I would love to see, in the context of an English lesson, the classroom transformed into an environment which rewards wacky, crazy-stupid and yes, even sometimes violent ideas. Until it is, boys’ creativity will continue to be ‘educated’ out of them at the upper end of Primary Schools and the lower end of Secondary Schools. And they will continue to give up on reading..."