Loose Tooth T

I read a great blog post today about the growing movement of people who are homeschooling their preschoolers. The emphasis of the post is that young children learn best through play, and we adults would do well to let them do it. No need for flashcards, scripted lesson plans, or worksheets. There can be a lot of pressure to do early academics, and it can be hard for geeky parents like me to resist it. So I welcome any reminder that play, and usually free play, is the best way for young children to learn about their world.

I focus on setting up our home so that it is a rich environment (like having a special art corner). We read, we play games, we go out in the world. We listen to songs and dance around. We even watch TV sometimes (gasp! a perfect mom "no-no"). I do all these things, but because of what I know about the importance of free play and the lure of early academics, I avoid lessons and direct instruction.

I am starting to see how fun it is to watch my daughter learn academic type things in her own time, as a natural corollary to the way we spend our day. For example, we have been reading abridged Winnie the Pooh stories, which are divided into tiny "chapters." Of course, each chapter is numbered. Bug is starting to make a game of talking about and identifying the number at the beginning of each chapter. Cool! I wasn't even thinking of that as a "learning opportunity," which is what helps to keep it fun and keep me relaxed. If I'm not counting on her to Learn Something, I'm not going to be pushy or slightly tense. I can focus on our relationship and her needs. All this is part of my grand desire to let learning be fun. Not make it fun. It already is fun, when you stay out of the way. Let it be.

Approaching learning this way, I am collecting little "how it happened" stories. Here's how letter recognition happened for Ladybug:

Our fridge, with "Chicka Chicka" magnets

Over Christmas, Ladybug and Daddy took a trip together, and on that trip Daddy bought the classic book Chicka Chicka Boom Boom. It's a rhyming alphabet book where the letters each climb a tree, fall down in a crazy pile, and one by one climb up again. The letters are distinguished by the various bumps and bruises they suffer when they tumble out of the tree. Ladybug's favorite letter is "loose tooth t." For a while, Daddy read Chicka Chicka Boom Boom every night, and the two of them played seek and find the letter. Suddenly, when I was reading various other books to Bug during the day, she was captivated by the presence of loose tooth t on many pages. A few times she even held down a page I was trying to turn, so she could point out and just ponder the fact that loose tooth t was in this book too. I felt like I was revealing an ancient secret when I said, "You'll start to see that all the letters are in all the books!" I guess it is an ancient secret, but we'll get to the Phoenicians later.

One day in particular, Ladybug was captivate by the word "OUT" written in large type. It was in a book about a bat (a follow up since she so loved Stellaluna). She kept flipping back to the "out" page and recognizing each of the letters, and saying "out" and not really reading, but still taking some step towards understanding that the story was coming from this code. What's memorable to me is her intensity. She had a glimpse of what that "out" word stood for and was so determined to study it more, to understand. I told my husband that I was glad he was there that day to see it happen, because I would have thought I was making it up otherwise.

Teaching reading can invoke so much stress. Should you take a phonics or whole-language approach? Do you need to be an expert to teach it? What if you mess it up? In all the homeschooling guides I read, there is a special section devoted to easing parents' worries about READING. I have always believed that I wouldn't need to worry about this too much, that the child of two bookworm parents who is lovingly read to will also blossom into reading. Am I excited by these first little signs? Of course. But I promise, at least for now: no flash cards, no scripted lesson plans, no worksheets.