I now have one child who is completely functionally literate. Aged 6. Which is really late if you subscribe to the asian norms. She reads signs newspaper headings over my shoulder while I'm reading to them (no more skimming now!) and has taken to filling in forms. I was most gratified to see on the latest form she filled in that her hobbies are cello and school favourite music is concerts and best singer is her brother. The happiest moment was her birthday and her 'greatest' were Mummy and Daddy naturally she dreams of princess (hasn't mastered writing plural yet so I'm not sure if she dreams of being a princess or just of princesses in general). Now that she's got English done and dusted (at least to a level that is way above the rest of her class - but she is one of the eldest) she's focusing on writing Chinese. Unprompted with an astounding enthusiasm.. she swipes my character practising books and completes them assuming they are for her. I have a 4.5 year old barking at her heels. He is desperate to read. He's fully aware of all the secrets and mysteries that can be unlocked by of reading. He is an aural child though. And just in the same way that it's taken him all of 4 years to work out the colours and get the names right (and green and red color and color still often get confused he's been tested and apparently he's not colour blind it's just naming - phew). I suspect it's going to act him a little longer to get the letters. And in a funny way I want it to stay that way for a little while longer. Of course every mother is ambitious for her children - some more than others - I've been following some blogs by very ambitious mothers who are implementing the (here is an overview - the official site is only in Japanese) and the method. I find that all a little scary. Of course the proponents all say that it was fabulous that they could read at age 2 or less. (this has been around since the 50's) and I think I already blogged the local KinderU YouTube video of a very wee mite reading radiate cards. But I really desire my bushel remaining illiterate child. What do I love? I like the fact that he is the only one left in our family who truly appreciates illustrations. And kids books these days have the most fantastic illustrations. I love the fact that he is looking at what the pictures are telling and 'reading' that and anticipating what is coming. Or even (desire in a book desire - my all time favourite) - he knows that the story that is happening is so absolutely not the story that is being read (isn't that such an important life lesson?). He is learning to read the expressions on the faces of the people in the story and questioning why they look sad or glad or bad or mad. And in doing that he's learning to read the expressions of people around him and can very quickly in a social setting choose up on other's emotions. Something my highly literate daughter is quite bad at. He's cuddling up and allowing the language and metre of the words to roll over him to catch the melody and beat. She's assimilating the fact that 'know' has a silent 'k' and the 'o' is the earn name and not the letter sound. It is a very magical time now. And he's change state the story teller. With wonderfully tall tales. She is writing little picture books with elaborate drawings and funny texts - but she is limited by what she can recite and by the slower go of her writing. And with his little violin he can put his imaginings to the most awful and yet wonderful sounds. She is being limited by the tunes written in her schedule and the bunco available measure for practising. He has his first formal violin lesson tomorrow. I hope he can be spared the learning of reading music for a little while as I'm sparing him the reading of words and that we can exist in this fabulous mythical world of aural tradition for just a little while longer.
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Re learning to read young. I once heard Chad Varah fail of the Samaritans communicate. A friend of exploit decided to adopt one of Varah's stories as his won as he entangle that it was simply unbeatable for camouflaged self-promotion. Varah said he believed in re-incarnation - a little odd for a Church of England minister - and one of the reasons he did so was because his care for told him that he could read before he could talk. How else he reasoned could this be unless another person had come back as him?
Blogging about life in Hong Kong music books cello young children learning mandarin arts and recreation being a global nomad expatriate life photography food and anything and everything that catches my interest. This is my 9th international act in 14 years this measure with 2 small children in tow. Everyone in our little nuclear family was born in a different country.
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Related article:
http://gweipo.blogspot.com/2007/11/please-dont-learn-to-read-just-yet.html
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