Episode 60: How Do Unschoolers Learn to Read? Does Reading Need to Be Explicitly Taught?

On our 60th episode, we are finally talking about Learning to Read! This can be a loaded topic with some proponents of self-directed education and unschooling taking the stand that reading will happen in its own time, versus reading research that strongly suggests otherwise, citing the complexities with learning to read requiring explicit instruction. When our experience doesn’t match the advice or research on either one of those, it can be confusing.

As we discuss this, we try to keep various angles in mind but full disclosure: we do have a lot of trust in a child’s inherent process. The distinction is likely that we also believe that parents and life itself are rich parts of a child’s literacy process and in some cases a child themself may request a supportive or formal resource.

We are grateful to have found a list by Sue Elvis (Stories of an Unschooling Family) from her post,Sharing Some Thoughts on Learning to Read which we used to guide the order of our discussion.

Resources:

Sharing Some Thoughts on Learning to Read - Sue Elvis, Stories of an Unschooling Family

Evoke Learning

Unschooling and reading: my daughter’s journey so far - Cyrille Tignard, Unschooling and Thriving

How Pokémon Sealed our Unschooling Fate - Missy Willis, Let ‘em Go Barefoot

Spot the Learning - Virtual Kitchen Table

Learning to Read 1 - Esther Jones, A Place on a Hill

Reading Doesn’t Need to Be Taught - Sara, Happiness is Here

Unschooling and Learning to Read - Sue Patterson, Unschooling Mom 2 Mom

8 Benefits to Learning to Read Later - Hayley, Taking a Kinder Path