This post is a summary of what I’ve learned while teaching my son to read, which turns out to be stuff I already knew.

My son asked me to teach him to read when he was five.  He is turning 10 this year, and he is now doing what I had set out to teach him those 5 years ago: reading the instructions for his math workbooks on his own.  This was the metric I used to measure all the various things we tried. And we tried a lot of things.  I kept track of our journey as part of a series, “teaching my son to read,” and you can read the first entry in that series in my archives, here.

When my son (or any child) is ready to learn a skill, they learn it, *snap*, just like that.  When they are not ready, a great deal of input is required to teach the skill.   I forgot all about that and focused totally on the fact that he could not read.  Mother Culture got me on this one.  I felt pressured, and passed that pressure right down the line to my then 7-year-old son.  Who cried. A lot. I had to change my approach.  I was not going to press tears out of him over “See Spot run.”

But I could not stop feeling the press inside myself, so no matter how hard I tried to block it from him, he felt it anyway.  That part sucked, because he was feeling like he was disappointing me, and he was right.  The deeper truth, though, was that I was disappointed with myself.  What kind of homeschooling parent cannot teach their child to read?

We used websites, software, basal readers, Dr. Seuss, word wheels, post it notes, finding letters in nature, copy work, and a bunch of other stuff that I can’t really remember except to remember that it did not work.  He could read the text present in one particular tool (the word wheel or the basal reader) but could not transfer that to any other reading situation.

So on February 5, 2009, I gave up.

I decided I could not teach him to read, and began looking for someone else to do it.  I vetted out tutors, all of whom wanted to test him for various things that I knew he did not have, like developmental delays.  I took him to the pediatrician instead because we have a family history of lazy eyes and tracking issues.  She sent him to the eye doctor to make sure he did not have a lazy eye or tracking issues.  I had him assessed for dyslexia, which I have.  The results across the board: “I’m sorry, Mrs. Winterton, but we just don’t know why your son is not reading.  There is no explanation for it.”  Well fuck.  At least I was clueless in good company.

Then my son told me he wanted to learn Spanish.  Spanish.  What about English?  But I was so over it, I just mumbled something, bought him Rosetta Spanish, and let him have at it.  A few weeks into his Rosetta lessons, I watched him read, in Spanish, El gato es blanco.  He read Spanish.  And then, to my surprise (wonder? horror?) he typed in Spanish, too.  It took me all of 57 seconds to order him Rosetta English.

I learned that the way in which English is taught as a second language is very different than they way it is taught to native speakers.  He responded very well to the ESL approach.  I hired a linguistics student, Megan Smith (smith.megan.e@gmail.com) to tutor him, not so much on reading, per se, but rather on understanding the basic structure of English, which was a great mystery to my son’s math brain.  The rules don’t make sense.  The spelling is insane.  Megan was able to explain why.  And Rosetta gave him the chance to practice it.

As an added bonus, there is a speech recognition program within Rosetta, which is helping Gabriel find his “r,” which he lost during the critical period of 1-3 years old when accents are formed.  We were listening to Harry Potter on tape during that time.  People often ask me if he is British.  “Yeah,” I tell them, “I picked him up on London tube.”

Once it became clear to me that the ESL approach is what worked for him, I ask Gabriel about that.

Me: So, If English is your second language, what is your first language?

Gabriel: Math.

Meanwhile, my friends were incredibly sympathetic and supportive.  Norma, founder of RSA and a Waldorf Homeschooler, reminded me (over and over and over and over and over again) that reading is not even started in the Waldorf paradigm until the 10th year, which is backed up by this study for those of you who prefer scientific research, like me.

As of a week ago, Gabriel is reading his own math workbooks instructions, which was the bar I set so many years ago.  He is also reading the speech bubbles in his games, the emails his friends send him, street signs, menus, the works.  He writes his own thank you cards, has a notebook with secrets in it, and writes knock knock jokes on our bathroom note board.  Is he a fluent reader? Not by a long stretch.  But, is he reading?  YES.  And all in his 10th year.  Go figure.

For anyone else out there struggling with a “late” reader:

1. Don’t let Mother Culture pressure you!
2. Get your child assessed by medical professionals to rule out any visual processing issues/learning disabilities, and most importantly to relieve your own anxiety.
3. Try a wide variety of tools until you find the one that works for your kid.
4. Save your freak out for the 10th year.

Gratitude to all my friends who listened to me weep and moan and struggle with this issue for so many years, and who offered suggestions, used books, tissues, and booze as needed.  Gabriel could not have done it without you.  And neither could I.