In fun ways for real reasons

From a 2003 article, "Some Thoughts on Homeschooling," by Sandra Dodd

My children learned to read without phonics lessons, without programmed readers, and without pressure. Kirby had two and a half lessons, and that cured me of doubt. I had taught reading, years before, and laying those two experiences side by side made me aware of the damage that whole mindset does. So I read to him, played word games with him, sang with him, watched movies with him, bought him video games and magazines to go with them, and from Nintendo gaming guides and magazines, he learned to read fluently when he was nine.

My other two read at ten and eleven. I was more relaxed, and though I was surprised that Holly read "late" (for a girl, I thought, unfairly), a year ago she wasn't reading and now she reads very well. It comes almost suddenly, once they "get it," and I'm convinced that it comes suddenly at school too, but teachers who want job security and paychecks disguise the process with years of exercises and read-alouds and worksheets until those loom large and the child is lost within. At some point a child either reads fluently or has given up trying.

Because my children learned to read without having been taught, they have no doubt whatsoever that they could learn anything else. Few things are as important or as complex as reading, yet they figured it out and enjoyed doing it. If I thought I had taught them, they too would think I taught them, and they would be waiting for me to teach them something else.

They have never been criticized for "not showing their work" when they do calculations in their heads. Mathematics, too, they have learned in fun ways for real reasons.

—Sandra Dodd, 2003
(Holly has read well for over 20 years)

SandraDodd.com/thoughts
photo by Denaire Nixon

Growth

Each tree grows from a single seed, and when a tree is growing in your yard what is the best thing you can do for it? You can nurture it and protect it, but measuring it doesn’t make it grow faster. Pulling it up to see how the roots are doing has never helped a tree a bit. What helps is keeping animals from eating it or scratching its bark, making sure it has water, good soil, shade when it needs it and sun when it needs it, and letting its own growth unfold peacefully. It takes years, and you can’t rush it.

So it is with children. They need to be protected from physical and emotional harm. They need to have positive regard, food, shade and sun, things to see, hear, smell, taste and touch. They need someone to answer their questions and show them the world, which is as new to them as it was to us. Their growth can’t be rushed, but it can be enriched.

from Changing the World
Some Thoughts on Homeschooling
SandraDodd.com/thoughts
tree photo by Holly Dodd

Live purely and sweetly

There are some homeschoolers who are so obsessed with the evils of school, the unfairness of some bygone situation or other that they or their children were involved in (or relatives, or friends' kids), that they cannot live a day without reliving that incident, emotional package and all. They obsess on school. They homeschool Because of School. When asked about homeschooling, they talk about school. . . . . If it is horrible, turn away from it and prove that life can be lived purely and sweetly without it. If life is lived in reactionary response to a thing, the thing is still the centerpiece of life and thoughts.

Sixth post down, archived discussion from 2001
photo by Julie D.