Reading and Personality

On my homeschool yahoo group recently a mom was asking about her child who seemed to be struggling with reading. Great suggestions were offered by moms with kids who had delayed reading for various reasons. Some of the reasons suggested mental development. I acknowledge elsewhere in my blog that each brain develops at it's own pace, allowing growing kids to master different skills at different paces. We, as a society or not overly concerned that all children begin walking when they are one. I'm not sure why we panic more about a non-reading 5, 6, or 7 year old who is otherwise learning and engaged in activities appropriate to the child's temperament.

I've alluded on this blog to MY experience with my now 8 year old daughter and her journey in reading mastery. I posted to the list an update and fuller picture of what that journey has looked like, and thought I should re-post those thoughts here. I'd like to add here that when this daughter was 6 and would be heading into 1st grade, I was concerned that she hadn't yet mastered even the basics of reading I thought were standard for kids on the completion of kindergarten. God told me my daughter was learning about herself. Once she'd figured her out, reading would come. What I share below seems to indicate that this has been the case.

I have similarly wondered if my now 8 year old has any learning disabilities. Her brother, whom I taught to read without any programs or curriculum was above grade level (as near as I can tell). But he was a mild kid who did what I asked and believed what I said. (Yay!)

My daughter, on the other hand, was high strung from birth. If I would caution her little 18 month old self about climbing the stairs, she would scream at me. She wanted to do everything herself. I think she preferred falling multiple times to being told what to do or how to do it. Reading started with similar frustrations. She wanted instant mastery. If I told her a letter made a different sound in a word than the sound she thought it should make, she would throw a tantrum.

So we waited. And waited. She loved to "write. " She would spend hours writing notes, ignoring any thoughts I had about letter formation and spelling. So I stopped suggesting. She also got frustrated when no one could read what she had written, but it was a lesser frustration than fielding suggestions from mom. Eventually this desire to communicate led her to ask how words were spelled and try to uniformly form letters.

It was through writing and self-expression that her reading came. I began to type the books that she would dictate and she, familiar with the words and story structure, began to work on reading them back to me. She felt grown up and important, having written, illustrated, and READ her own children' s books. I think it was that grown-up-and-important feeling she was so angry to preserve in the reading process. Even minor corrections seemed to be diminishing to her. 

So "progress" over the last 3 years has been "slow." However, as I've let her learn and do on her own time table, she has loved reading. Just this summer we've pulled out some phonics readers and I'm amazed at where she is at without any directed work or specific instruction. AND along with her reading skills, her patience and personal skills have grown too. I can offer help without a melt-down now. And, having preserved the love, reading is something we now can work on for longer stretches together and have it be a pleasant experience instead of a fight.

I have read about delayed reading - how at times one's mind is not ready. I've heard of learning disabilities that can slow a would-be reader down. For my daughter, I really think it's more about who she is. I don't know if that helps anyone struggling with a kid "behind" in reading. But I have no doubt my independent-to-the-extreme daughter will some day be a great reader, and in the time before she gets there, we are enjoying the journey and process of her growing in more than just academics.