Wednesday, January 03, 2007

Tacksays

As I've mentioned before, Fiona is learning to read. Pretty much all I've done is answer her questions, which have become increasingly complex. We also have the first level of Bob Books lying around, which she enjoys pulling out and reading from time to time, and magnetic letters on the fridge, which have become her favourite preoccupation.

Yesterday she asked for help spelling "says", wondering if it was SES ... and I, kneading bread on the counter around the corner, dutifully spelled out the letters S-A-Y-S. Then Fiona proceeded to announce proudly that she had spelled 'taxes' -- and there it was: TACKSAYS.

The beauty of just responding to questions is that you never make the mistake of pushing, you never use the wrong approach (with the occasional exception of mis-spellings like 'tacksays', LOL!), you never overstep a child's autonomy or readiness. This is pretty much how her older siblings all learned to read too.

3 comments:

  1. hello!
    i think fiona is adorable. i remember before, my son spelled daisy as "deisey". at least it was phonetically correct. =D
    take care!

    ReplyDelete
  2. I have used the same sort of approach with my son (5). One of his recent spellings was "Weda"- (pronounced wEEda). He was writing a gift tag for our friend Rita.

    I enjoy reading about your unschooling- it is very inspirational. We lean toward unschooling here- but I feel many doubts. Thanks for blogging and reminding me why I love unschooling. and that it really works.

    ReplyDelete
  3. bwahaha! that is too cute, i love it.

    ReplyDelete

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