Mom says she’s not teaching her 5-year-old to read | Fellowship of the Minds (1 Viewer)

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Linda

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I did not formally teach my daughter to read, and I was a teacher back then. She enjoyed books and picked up reading along the way because she wanted to. To me this seems to be a normal progression of childhood - being exposed to the joys and magic of stories and then learning to read because they want to. Now, if this mom was not doing anything else with her children, then I would agree that she is not doing the best job. However, she explains that they do read books together, but she just has not started formal phonetic lessons.
 

Snowmelt

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I have no negative judgement of this mother. She does things her way, and is probably doing a fine job. One of the joys I had was being introduced to poetry at about the age of 3 or 4. This was poetry for an older age range - but I "got" it. The lilt, the rhyme, the meaning, how poems can draw pictures in your mind. Of course, early childhood rhyme books can do this job. I read a lot of rhyme books to my 2-year old. She doesn't recall any of that now, but I had a lot of fun with it! I came from a "literary" family, so literature it was, and reading was a normal, every day thing to do. I found that being an early reader did lead to finding creative writing coming easily too.
 

Golmona

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I completely understand where this mom is coming from and from my perspective she is not lazy. She merely respects her child's natural process of development. Children are born with inherent curiosity and if parents allow them the space to be and grow, with love and patience, and at the same time exposing them to a variety of things, they will learn everything in their own way and time because they want to and not because they have to. And wouldn't learning be much more fun when it comes from a place of genuine curiosity? :)
 

Snowmelt

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I would like to add something here. It was mentioned in the video about some mums pushing babies who are months old, let alone years old, to start with holding books and start with mouthing words. I think this is a kind of "craze" where people think the goal of life is to reach some sort of creepy apex (makes me think of the 1% and the 99%!) But envisioning the future, I would say the majority understanding will be for contribution, not winning over others. Babies will be allowed to grow and unfold into the beings they were born to be, children will be given room to mature (something they enjoyed in the further past, but not the recent past), and beauty will be seen in diverse function and application, activity and stillness. We are simply moving out of the dog-eat-dog world. Animals and people will occupy a higher ledge of perception.
 

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