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Delightful Reading Questions
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Hi there!
I am preparing to begin the Delightful Reading program with my daughter (the elementary, reading lessons stage), so I’m reading the “Charlotte Mason on Teaching Reading” section in the book, and I’ve run into something that’s confused me. On page 14, it says “As spelling is simply the art of seeing, seeing the letters in a word as we see the features of a face-say to the child, ‘Can you spell sky?’- or any of the shorter words. He is put on his mettle, and if he fail this time, be sure he will be able to spell the word when you ask him next; but do not let him learn to spell or even say the letters aloud with the word before him.” Can anyone help me understand this better? I understood that if I ask my child to spell a word, and she hesitates, then I am to write it out for her. It seems, though, that this quote from Charlotte is saying the opposite. I’m confused! Any clarification would be greatly appreciated. I don’t want to be falling all over myself in these lessons. By the way, my daughter is 8, can read okay but we’re taking a step back because I erroniously have taught her to “sound it out” rather than teaching any “sight” reading, and it’s caught up with us.
Thanks everyone!
Lillylou,
I can’t speak to your speak to your specific question, but want to encourage you that she may simply need time. Personally, I prefer a strong phonics (sound it out) base and my oldest now 10 didn’t take off with reading until she was 8.5 – 9. Now I can’t keep the child in books and she only sounds out unusual words. I don’t think you’ve erred at all, phonics based reading is a very effective method, but feel free to use what works for you, just know that sometimes all that is needed is TIME.
Blessings,
Christie
As I understand it, Charlotte was discouraging a common practice in reading lessons in her day. It seems that the children would be given a passage to read, and as they read aloud, if they came to a word they didn’t know they would say the letters aloud and the teacher would tell them the word, then they would continue reading. Well, we know children, and the result of that practice would be inattention. They would simply drone on and allow the teacher to do the mental work for them. They weren’t really looking at the word and learning it, they were just giving the teacher the letters so she could supply the missing word.
Here’s a portion from Volume 5 that is similar.
In the first place, her lessons must be made interesting. Do not let her scramble through a page of ‘reading,’ for instance, spelling every third word and then waiting to be told what it spells, but let every day bring the complete mastery of a few new words, as well as the keeping up of the old ones.
But do not let the lesson last more than ten minutes, and insist, with brisk, bright determination, on the child’s full concentrated attention of eye and mind for the whole ten minutes. Do not allow a moment’s dawdling at lessons.
With that spell-it-to-the-teacher method, the child was not held accountable to learn the word or even encouraged to really look at it. With Charlotte’s method, she expected the child to be paying attention and looking at spellings as he learned to read the words.
Does that help any?
Thank you so much Sonya, that does clear it up. By the way, both of my girls (you met them at your booth in OKC) saw me cutting apart the tiles for Delightful Reading, and are very excited about it. Thank you for offering such a great tool. My husband and I read through the whole “Charlotte Mason on Teaching Reading” section last night, and we’re both excited as well. My husband and I both grew up military, but I was homeschooled and he was not. Because of moving so much in his elementary years, and not having help with reading at home (he didn’t have a mom, and, btw, had never heard any Mother Goose Rhymes until we started dating!), he hated reading as a child. As we were reading this section in the book, and got to page 15 in the section about the Ordinary Method, and this stuck out to him, “Eventually , he learns to read, somehow, by mere dint of repetition; but consider what an abuse of his intelligence is a system of teaching which makes him undergo daily labour with little or no result, and gives him a distaste for books before he has learned to use them.” He related stories of being asked to read aloud at a new school, not succeeding, and consequently made to stay indoors during recess, where the teacher would sit at her desk in the darkened room, offering no additional help, while he sat at his desk, staring at the words he couldn’t read and crying. He said all he remembers is the tears on the page. It broke my heart, and at the same time made him almost giddy that our children are learning in this manner. We were both very happy that not only were we able to read all about how Charlotte taught, but that this system offers all of the components mentioned in the writings! Ms.Gore has done a great job. Thank you for publishing it!
Lindsey
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