2061: How My Son Learned to Read When We Stopped Trying to Teach Him by Isaac Morehouse on Unschooling & Self-Directed Learning

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Episode 2061:

Isaac Morehouse shares a transformative experience with his son's learning journey, illustrating the profound impact of unschooling. By stepping back from conventional teaching methods and embracing a more natural, interest-led approach, his son discovered the joy of reading on his own terms. This narrative challenges the conventional wisdom on education and underscores the importance of trust in a child's innate ability to learn.

Read along with the original article(s) here: https://isaacmorehouse.com/2015/06/30/how-my-son-learned-to-read-when-we-stopped-trying-to-teach-him/

Quotes to ponder:

"Reading was always an activity that interrupted his day and was associated with expectant and often visibly stressed parents."

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How my son learned to read when we stopped trying to teach him by Isaac Morehouse of IsaacMorehouse.com. [01:00.000 --> 01:08.000] Hello everybody, and welcome to another parenting edition of Optimal Relationships Daily. I'm Greg Audino, your host and narrator, [01:08.000 --> 01:17.000] and this is the podcast where I read to you each day from different blogs that offer insight on relationship building, covering parenting content on Thursdays and Fridays. [01:17.000 --> 01:32.000] This time we'll be hearing from Isaac Morehouse, an author we have read from throughout the whole network for some time now. Let's hear his story about how his son learned to read as we optimize your life. [01:32.000 --> 01:40.000] How my son learned to read when we stopped trying to teach him by IsaacMorehouse of IsaacMorehouse.com. [01:41.000 --> 01:49.000] We were homeschooling and our son was six years old. He had a good vocabulary and comprehension of ideas beyond many kids his age. [01:49.000 --> 01:57.000] We knew reading would open up the world to him. We knew he would like it. And we knew he was very capable of doing it. But he didn't. [01:57.000 --> 02:04.000] We tried flashcards. We tried read-alongs. We tried playing hardball and we tried being fun and exciting. [02:04.000 --> 02:12.000] We tried restricting activities until he'd done his reading lessons and we tried giving rewards. All these efforts had two things in common. [02:12.000 --> 02:23.000] They did not help him read one bit and they made our relationship with him worse. Being a parent and being a child ceased to be fun when you're at odds all the time. [02:23.000 --> 02:31.000] So, at an age when we were starting to worry about his lagging behind, we simply stopped trying. We quit the whole effort. [02:31.000 --> 02:41.000] He was nearly seven when we gave it up in favor of more peace and harmony in the house. Daily life was a little easier. Yet we still had this nagging worry about him. [02:41.000 --> 02:52.000] What will happen if he's behind where he's supposed to be for his age? Still, everything about our efforts to make him read felt wrong. So we simply ignored the fears. [02:53.000 --> 03:08.000] I was reading a lot of great books on how kids learn. And I knew intellectually that kids need no instruction to learn to read. They will learn when they find it valuable. And if they're in an environment where it's possible, one with books and other readers. [03:08.000 --> 03:21.000] Still, the head and the heart are very different things. I knew kids were better at self-teaching than being taught. But I had to watch my own son, sharp as he was, remain completely outside the wonderful world of the written word. [03:22.000 --> 03:32.000] Then, it happened. Just like so many of the books said it would. You believe it in stories, but it's still a surprise when it happens in real life. [03:32.000 --> 03:44.000] One night, I overheard my son reading aloud to himself in bed. And the first thing he read wasn't Dick and Jane, but Calvin and Hobbes. Not light fair for a brand new reader. [03:45.000 --> 03:54.000] Let me back up a bit. We would often read to him for a few minutes before bed. And lately he had been in love with some old Calvin and Hobbes comics I had for my adolescence. [03:54.000 --> 04:01.000] We'd read him a few pages and say goodnight. One night it was later than usual, and he asked me if I'd read. [04:01.000 --> 04:11.000] I was a bit grumpy and tired, and I said no, I was going to bed. He protested a bit, but could see I wasn't up for it. So he let it go, seeming defeated. [04:11.000 --> 04:22.000] Ten minutes later, I heard him reading. He later told me that he wasn't actually reading it that night, nor the first several nights after when he spoke the words, and often laughed aloud. [04:22.000 --> 04:31.000] He had heard us read it so many times, he had the words memorized. He was looking at the pictures and reciting the words like lines to a familiar song. [04:31.000 --> 04:38.000] I didn't know this until long after he could clearly read without first memorizing. But it really doesn't matter. [04:38.000 --> 04:49.000] In fact, it's probably better that my wife and I assumed he was reading it when we first heard him, or we might have been tempted to intervene and try to cajole him into reading it without the cheat of memory and illustrations. [04:49.000 --> 04:54.000] I know too well the unhappy kind of outcome that would have created. [04:54.000 --> 05:04.000] For a year or more, we fought with a kid who clearly had all the tools to read, and we got nowhere. He wasn't faking his inability. He really couldn't read. [05:04.000 --> 05:14.000] Reading was always an activity that interrupted his day, and was associated with expectant, and often visibly, despite attempts to hide it, stressed parents. [05:14.000 --> 05:30.000] It was a concept as useless as it was foreign. But once he had a strong desire to enjoy his favorite comic strip, and his inability to read was the barrier, he overcame it in no time, and never even celebrated or announced it to us. [05:30.000 --> 05:46.000] It was utilitarian, not some lofty thing to perform for a gold star or a pad on the back. His ability and interest in reading, then writing and spelling, only intensified as he found it indispensable for playing games like Minecraft and Scribblenauts. [05:46.000 --> 05:54.000] We've since made a full transition from the imposed curriculum of homeschooling to the kid created structure of unschooling. [05:54.000 --> 06:03.000] Looking back, I'm a little ashamed of the silly way we approached things before, but at the time it was so hard to let go, with all that crippling fear. [06:03.000 --> 06:13.000] There are so many shoulds pumped into parents' brains from the moment they conceive. There are percentiles and averages and tests and rankings galore. [06:13.000 --> 06:22.000] But these are useful only to the statisticians, and none of them have your child's interest or happiness in mind. Aggregates aren't individuals. [06:22.000 --> 06:30.000] Living your life or attempting to shape your child's life to conform to the average of some population is not a recipe for success. [06:30.000 --> 06:35.000] At best, it will produce blandness, at worst, a broken spirit. [06:35.000 --> 06:45.000] You can read any number of thinkers like John Holt, John Taylor Gatto, or Peter Gray, on why our son's experience is not exceptional but normal. [06:46.000 --> 06:55.000] You can look at studies that show kids who learn to read at age 4, and kids who learn to read at age 9, having the same reading comprehension by age 11. [06:55.000 --> 07:03.000] You can get story after story from places like the Sudbury Valley School about kids who taught themselves to read in a few short weeks once they got the interest, [07:03.000 --> 07:09.000] and even one girl who didn't become interested until age 13, and then went on to win a literary prize. [07:09.000 --> 07:14.000] But it's all theory and myth until you experience it with your own child. [07:14.000 --> 07:19.000] Read the books. Look into the unschooling movement and literature. [07:19.000 --> 07:26.000] But above all, take a step back from your own kids and realize that they are only young once, and for such a short time. [07:26.000 --> 07:31.000] Do you really want your memories with them to consist of fights and forced lessons? [07:31.000 --> 07:36.000] Enjoy them. Let them go their own way and navigate the world. [07:36.000 --> 07:42.000] There are few things more exciting than when they come to you to ask for your help or insight because they really want it, [07:42.000 --> 07:48.000] or when they never do because they figure it out on their own and gain a confidence that cannot be won any other way. [07:48.000 --> 07:53.000] The world we live in does not lack for natural incentives to learn to read. [07:53.000 --> 07:57.000] The rewards are massive, as are the costs of illiteracy. [07:57.000 --> 08:03.000] We don't need to artificially incentivize reading the way a poor farmer might have a few hundred years ago. [08:03.000 --> 08:11.000] When we do, we do more harm than good, if not to our children's ability to read than at least to our enjoyment of our time with them. [08:11.000 --> 08:19.000] They figured out how to speak, the most difficult, nuanced, and complex skill a human can master without any formal instruction. [08:19.000 --> 08:21.000] They can learn to read too. [08:24.000 --> 08:31.000] You just listened to the post titled, How My Son Learned to Read When We Stopped Trying to Teach Him. [08:31.000 --> 08:34.000] By Isaac Morehouse of IsaacMorehouse.com. [08:34.000 --> 08:38.000] And be sure to stick around for my commentary in just a second. [08:38.000 --> 08:46.000] Now, there's a lot of talk about New Year's resolutions right now, and most of them revolve around either a healthier lifestyle or freeing up some time for ourselves. [08:46.000 --> 08:52.000] Why not both? Get started on your resolutions with Factor, so you're ready for the New Year. [08:52.000 --> 08:58.000] Factors ready to eat meal delivery takes the stress out of meal planning and sets you up for success in the New Year. [08:59.000 --> 09:02.000] Skip the grocery stores, prep work, and cooking fatigue. [09:02.000 --> 09:07.000] Instead, get chef-crafted, dietitian-approved meals delivered right to your door. [09:07.000 --> 09:15.000] With over 35 meals to choose from per week, including options like keto, calorie smart, vegan and veggie, and more, [09:15.000 --> 09:22.000] plus over 55 weekly add-ons, you'll have a ton of nutritious and flavorful options to kickstart your resolutions. [09:22.000 --> 09:27.000] And what I really like is that when things get hectic, factor is flexible. [09:27.000 --> 09:34.000] Change your order up every week with plans from 4 to 18 meals per week, or pause or reschedule your deliveries anytime. [09:34.000 --> 09:43.000] So, head to FactorMeals.com slash Optimal50, that's Optimal50, and use code Optimal50 to get 50% off. [09:43.000 --> 09:50.000] That's code Optimal50 at FactorMeals.com slash Optimal50 to get 50% off. [09:51.000 --> 09:53.000] And thank you so much to Isaac for this post. [09:53.000 --> 10:00.000] One that I really enjoyed, and I imagine provides many of you parents with a sense of calmness, even if it's just temporary. [10:00.000 --> 10:09.000] As he mentioned, there are percentiles and graphs galore showing you many ways that your child is normal or excellent or lagging behind. [10:09.000 --> 10:15.000] Of course, it's easy to get wrapped up in these types of measurements as we are concerned for our children's futures, [10:15.000 --> 10:18.000] and we do want to prepare them to succeed as best we can. [10:18.000 --> 10:25.000] But at the same time, we must remember that our time with our children, being children, is limited, like Isaac said. [10:25.000 --> 10:32.000] This beautiful phase is very fleeting, and we want to be able to look back at it with as many fond memories as possible. [10:32.000 --> 10:36.000] We want them to be happy. We want to be happy with them. [10:36.000 --> 10:43.000] And for that reason, investing in their futures means a balance of, yes, pushing them to be at their best, [10:43.000 --> 10:46.000] but also sitting back and simply enjoying them. [10:46.000 --> 10:53.000] As a matter of fact, I would say this sense of balance and safety is likely to help them find that professional and academic success [10:53.000 --> 10:57.000] more so than constantly making it about learning lessons in school. [10:57.000 --> 11:03.000] So think about that today, everybody. It's time to wrap up now, but I think Isaac again for sharing his work, [11:03.000 --> 11:07.000] and naturally, I thank you so much for coming and making another episode possible. [11:07.000 --> 11:11.000] Sit on what you've heard today and get ready for another Parenting Post tomorrow. [11:11.000 --> 11:15.000] I hope to see you there, where your optimal life awaits. [11:15.000 --> 11:17.000] Thank you. Transcription results written to '/home/forge/transcribe2.sonicengage.com/releases/20240207164437' directory