Why the wait-and-let-them-learn-to-read-naturally approach can be harmful to some homeschooled kids. My oldest child was nearly 8, and still, he couldn’t read beyond cat-sat-hat. We made our way through reading curriculum but by age 7, he was still not reading and I was worried. And then one day, he picked up a Harry Potter novel and slowly but most certainly, he read. It was a beautiful moment, one that caused my jaw to drop. I quickly recovered so that I could summon my husband into the room to show him this amazing event. Then I waited for our daughter to do the same, but by age 9, she was clearly memorizing short books, not reading them. And her confidence was plummeting. “I’m the only one in Girl Scouts who can’t read, Mommy,” she told me one day. Although her scout leader and the other girls had been kind and helpful to her when it came to reading, she knew. She knew she was different. My heart broke for her. “I’m not smart.” “I’ll never learn to read.” These statements began to come with more frequency and no amount of encouragement from me would convince her that she would learn to read one day, that she was in fact, in the process of learning to read. With both my oldest son and my daughter, I clung to the words of my homeschool mentors, influential, experienced, knowledgeable homeschool moms who now had teens and adults who could read perfectly well, but who were also late readers. I was grateful for their words of encouragement, even as I wrung my hands with worry and googled yet another reading curriculum option. In fact, I soaked up these words and I used them to reassure myself that my kids were okay. One was. One clearly wasn’t. And here’s why: There’s a difference between being a late reader and a child who isn’t reading because they have a learning disability. The Path to Reading While Homeschooling It’s common in the homeschooling world for seasoned parents to tell the stories of their late blossoming readers; kids who did not read until they were 9, 10, 11, even 12 years old. Parents who appreciated the benefit of not pushing kids to read too early, as they would have been in public school, instead waited until their child’s brain was ready to transform into a fluent reader. Some stories are about kids leaping grade levels ahead with no instruction or intervention, or maybe in spite of it. While these parents may have worried if their child was ever going to read, they are on the other side of it now. I was right there with them as I fretted about my oldest son. Then he read, and I rejoiced. What a relief! I, too, began to extoll the virtues of letting kids read when they are good and darn ready. No amount of waiting, however, ...
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