Learning to Read as an Unschooler

We’ve seen our kids, who are now 10 and 7 1/2, learn to read in very different ways. It’s so interesting to compare them now, when we’re the other side of that journey.

Our eldest did 3 years of British state primary before we started homeschooling. She was pushed to be reading at 5 and had a lot of challenges and anxiety around learning to read. I’m grateful she had an awesome teacher in year one who turned her around from being super stressed about reading – but she was only super stressed about reading because of the pressure and unrealistic expectations of school.

There is plenty of evidence that pushing children to read before they are ready, and having expectations of a fixed age by which children should be reading, particularly in a school environment, leads to ongoing issues for those children for whom that fixed age is just too young. Children internalise that reading is hard, that they are no good at it, no good at school and the lack of confidence leads to predictable behavorial, academic and ongoing achievement differences.

We now unschool, letting the children self-direct their own education and our youngest’s experience of learning to read has been very different. He is now 7, and has effectively taught himself to read.

So, what did that look like?

For a start, we have always read to our children. Picture books, longer stories, non-fiction books, poetry for poetry teatimes… As well as reading books, we have read out anything they wanted reading out. As our kids got into movies, often that was reading on screen text or subtitles, as well as the text on video games. As our son got older, the books I read to him, or as a read-aloud for both kids, or that we listened to on audiobooks. got longer and more detailed. His love of stories and capacity for bigger books far outpaced his reading, but that was okay. In that way, we “read” the Spiderwick Chronicles, the Imaginary Veterinary series, the Hobbit, some of Percy Jackson and more. Read the longer books to kids – it helps their vocabulary expand, as well as helping books be a fun part of their life.

Storytelling has also been a part of our son’s journey, though one thing I have learnt is that reading, writing and storytelling or just putting together what you want written, are all separate skills. We have scribed for our son’s stories for years, similarly to the Brave Writer Jot-It-Down approach. He has also delved into storytelling through movies and movie making.

Our son has had access to both apps and books targeted at kids learning to read, but he has done these of his own choice, at his own pace. If he wanted to spend hours on something he could. He could also not touch them for weeks at a time. Reading Eggs he started using around age 4 and got bored of at 6. He also used the PBS Kids Games and Khan Kids apps.

He liked the ‘Now I’m Reading’ books, but thought the oft-recommended ‘Bob books’ were dull and not worth it. We have – and have got from the library – various “levelled” books, but actually, he has gone straight to the picture books he loves: the Winne the Witch series, the Monsters like Underpants series, books by Julia Donaldson and Janet & Allen Ahlberg. Fun books with great illustrations, but also often with rhyme and repetition just like the supposed “learn-to-read” books.

His reading started taking off when he wanted it to. He got to a point where not being able to read onscreen text with video games was frustrating. So he learnt to read because he wanted to. I think this is so important and seems to be the main factor in when unschooled children learn to read. For some, that drive comes earlier, for some, later. The game Assassins Creed has provided a huge incentive to get faster at reading, as well as providing so much reading practice. Reading these days is very much not just about paper books!

We worked to not put him under any pressure, having seen the negative side of that with our eldest, and learning to read has been a remarkably stress free experience for him. I can all too easily see though how he would have foundered in a school system and internalised that he was no good at this, rather than it just being an assumption he would read when he was ready. Now he is proudly reading to other people, and if he sometimes trips up over a new word or when he’s going too fast, it’s not a big deal and some of the words he can read, that are just a part of his vocabulary, amaze me.

So if your kiddo isn’t yet reading, and you have no particular concerns, don’t sweat it.

If you do have concerns – if say, they really want to read but are finding it impossible, especially if they are older, then follow your instincts and get an assessment. Dyslexia is no joke.

But otherwise, it seems that they really will learn to read if you don’t teach them.

For more information, this article by Peter Gray is helpful.