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| Patrick, CC BY-NC 2.0 via Flickr |
Some children are born with an innate passion for books, and can't wait to get their hands on books and begin reading. Not my daughter!
Born to two adults who were reading before they started preschool and continue to devour books as though it were the same as oxygen needed to survive, Dinky loves books, but hates words. Her father, an amateur etymologist, doesn't understand how she hasn't started to pick up different words yet, and several people have suggested that the public school system could do a better job of forcing her to learn what we have seemingly "failed" to teach her at home.
It's not that my daughter can't learn at home (or elsewhere, for that matter) but that she doesn't care for the process of reading. She's as obsessed with books as any good bibliophile would wish their child to be, but it's the feel of them, the scent of them, and the stories they contain which fascinate her. She couldn't care less about the words themselves, or the individual sounds that the letters make. Phonics is hard for her, as it is for some children, and so reading has become a chore of daily memorization with a memory full of holes through while the words fall when the story is over.
And that's okay.
We don't want to push her because we understand that forcing someone to read won't foster a love of reading and of books. She's passionate about the books themselves, in love with the stories, and is capable of following a character through a series of events making up a plot or a story. Pushing her could deplete her desire to learn as time goes on, and sitting with her to read begins the process of her learning the words -- as long as she keeps her eyes on the page.
People learn differently. My Dinky doesn't do well with Phonics, and there's time to adjust. After all, the philosophy in home schooling is that it's better late than early. She loves books, and that's one heck of a start. If there's one thing she often wants more than any other, it's new books.
And if there is only one thing she can learn from me and her father, this is the thing I want it to be. I'm proud of her for believing in books. The rest will come later.
Good insight. I never liked reading all the way through school, probably because I felt like we were being forced to read a lot of books I didn't like. When I was in fifth grade, I discovered the Babysitters Club series and really enjoyed those for a couple of years. It wasn't until I was in my early 20s and read the Harry Potter books that I really fell in love with reading, so I'm proof that it's never too late! Now I'm an avid reader!
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