The Developmental Process Works!! So Exciting!

So for about seven years now, I've been working at becoming a parent who takes a developmental perspective with her children rather than a (cognitive) behavioural approach.  If you've been reading my blog for a while, you'll know of some of my struggles, about some of our successes, about my passion for the work of developmental psychologist Dr. Gordon Neufeld, about our radical shifting of parenting style over the years.

It's all about the attachment-based developmental process which suggests that, provided the right environment, our children will develop and mature spontaneously when they are neurologically and emotionally ready to do so.

I've believed it in my head for many years already, and have demonstrated what has often felt like blind faith.  But we've seen massive changes in our children as a result, and these changes have kept us going.

But now...these days I believe the process to a much deeper level (in my heart as well as in my brain), because I'm in the midst of witnessing the developmental process at work.

Matthew just turned ten a month ago, and if he were in the public system he'd be in grade 4.  He is a very bright, philosophically-oriented, gentle-natured and highly sensitive child who is very resistant to following structure or curriculum.  Hence one of the bigger reasons we are trying unschooling this year (and, I suspect, for the foreseeable future).

I have been waiting for Matthew to read since he was five years old.  For over five years, I have offered opportunities to read, tried (mostly unsuccessfully, given his high level of resistance) to teach him little bits here and there and, most importantly, tried to provide the right environment by being relaxed about it, by trusting that someday it would happen when he was ready, and by assuring him that some day (when he was ready) he was going to be a brilliant reader.  I have ridden the roller coaster ride with him as his interest in learning how to read has ebbed and flowed (mostly ebbed) for five or six years.  And every time there's been interest, I've had to let it go again as his interest died.  Privately, I've wondered if he'd ever read.

As a believer in the developmental process, I simply kept telling myself that he wasn't ready yet.  He wasn't ready yet.  He wasn't ready yet.  But, as any parent might imagine, it's also a scary thing when your aging child shows no interest in reading and professes (as recently as four or five weeks ago) that he will never want to read and never will read.  Again, I have simply always presented a calm and relaxed and unconcerned face about it, and have assured him that this was ok because he just wasn't ready yet.  About two months ago, when he had a (very brief) moment of expressing an interest in reading, he read something that was somewhere between a grade 1 and grade 2 level, and it was very basic, very stilted/halted reading.

Then, about two weeks ago he suddenly decided that he wanted to set himself a three-week goal for reading.  You may have read that post.  I was fine with that, and quietly went along with it, but inwardly was preparing for another letdown - that it was a whim of his that would die a quiet death within a day...or maybe two.

Well, we took a break from reading for a few days during our mini vacation last week, but as of today Matthew has accomplished eleven days of his twenty-one day goal.  Entirely at his own initiative.  No tears, no trauma.  He has been reading with - wait for it, enthusiasm!

When I last presented reading material to him a couple of months ago, he read at the grade 1-2 level, and in a very stilted manner.  "The. dog. went. for. a. w-w-a-l-k."

We have done no work on reading since then, absolutely nothing, until the beginning of his goal two weeks ago.

So when we started day one of his twenty-one days, I pulled out reading at the grade 2 level, which was about where I thought he'd be at, and maybe a little ahead of where he was at.  To my surprise, he sailed through it.  No stilted reading efforts.  Smooth, easy reading for 15-20 minutes.  I honestly thought it was a fluke on the first day, so I offered him different material at the same level the next day and the day after that.  Huh, I thought, what's up with that?  I was dumbfounded.  For three consecutive days he flew through grade 2 reading material, and correctly answered every comprehension question that was asked of him.

Finally, at the end of our third day's reading session, I asked him if he'd be willing to try reading something a little harder.  The night before I'd identified some grade 3 reading materials and so that's what I offered to him.  Blow me away, the kid just read it.  He read it!!  I had done absolutely nothing different than I'd ever done; in fact, had done nothing at all!  And he was suddenly, overnight, reading at a grade 3 level.

Then he said that he was bored and that he wished he could read stuff that didn't sound babyish.  He wanted to read about animals.  So that night I went onto my ipad and found a reading app about animals in the wild, and the following day presented him with this to read on my ipad.

I was a bit worried because the reading was at a level for a grade 3-4 student.  But to my utter shock, he started reading that, too.  Not quite as quickly, and not without having to sound out some of the harder words, but he was doing it, and doing it remarkably smoothly, and when there was a word that stumped him, he figured it out.  In the following days, I had to help with only two or three words - the rest he figured out by himself (in fact, he asked me not to help him).

I honestly don't know how he reads many of the words he's reading.  It's like magic.  As I follow along with him, I see words coming that I keep thinking oh, he's never going to be able to read that one and I inwardly cringe, waiting for the frustrated meltdown, and lo and behold he then just sails right through it like it's nothing or he stops for a few seconds to figure it out.  Words like appearance, orangutans, estimated, protruding, absence, oxygen, efficient, poisonous, majority, existence, domesticated, chambered, elephant, communication, resemble, variety, intelligence, Asia, copper-coloured, distinguished, leatherback, largest, population, individual, captivity, cartilage, plankton, approximately, vegetation, capacity, conserve, undisturbed, Antarctica, protection, tropical, automatically, propelling, Australia, weigh, and so on.  While these words may not seem so amazing in and of themselves, consider that they were read by a boy who, prior to eleven days ago, had to painstakingly sound out the word walk.

People, this is a miracle!  Really and truly a miracle born out of developmental readiness!  This is not coming from any effort on my part.  He's simply, finally ready...and interested...and motivated...and reading!

As if this weren't enough, there's another thing that has fascinated me these days.  But I'll explain by way of context first.  Three years ago, when Matthew was in grade 1, we (in our pre-unschooling days!) were generally following curriculum for grade 1 students.  I was supposed to teach him the difference between the singular and plural spellings of words that ended in 'y.'  You know the ones:  'city' becomes 'cities.'  There were all sorts of grammar-related things that I was supposed to be teaching him and I tried, really and truly I did, but it was like water off of a duck's back.  Nothing penetrated.  It was just frustrating, ending up with him on the floor crying, and so I'd give up, also frustrated.  The following year, and the year after that, when I was still (more or less) attempting to follow curriculum, I re-taught the exact same things.  Still no penetration.  Nothing.  He got frustrated, and I dropped it...just like I dropped pretty much every strategy having to do with learning how to read.

Then a few days ago, well in towards his 21-day reading goal, Matthew got stuck on the word cities in something that he was reading.  He figured it out, more by context than by any other means, but at the end of his reading time, I drew his attention back to the word and explained how words ending with 'y' might change when pluralized.  One sentence - that's all I said about it.  You know what he said?  "Oh, ok." The next day he sailed through the words 'ponies' and one other word that I can't remember.  I asked him how he had been able to read that, and he reiterated the pluralization suggestion from the day before.  Three years I attempted to teach him that when he wasn't ready and it meant absolutely nothing.  Now, I say it when he's ready and suddenly it takes one sentence from me and he's got it.  The same thing happened yesterday when I showed him how commas and colons are used.  No thousand time repetition.  He just got it.  Immediately.

I cannot tell you how pumped I am.  I've never seen anything like it.  I've heard about stories like this from friends who've also allowed their children to read when ready, but I truly didn't know it would ever happen to one of my kids.

Matthew has no idea how excited I am that a whole new world is waiting for him to discover.  In front of him, I'm the same person I've been for the past five or six years - believing that when he's ready, he'll read, and being totally casual about it all.  I don't praise him for finishing his reading time; and I don't praise him for doing it well.  I am not going to train him do this for my pleasure or because he thinks I'm happy about it.  I want, as I've always wanted, for this to be self motivated and for him to want to learn how to read.  By him, for him.  So I don't praise him.  The best I'll offer when he's finished his reading is to maybe say something like "well, that must have felt good...you seemed to enjoy this morning's topics."

Yesterday morning, I even went a little overboard in my (deliberate) casualness, just to gauge his interest.  He asked if we could go into the library so that he could read to me and I said, "really, right now Matthew??  Could it wait for a half hour?"

His response:  "Mom, seriously, you can't stop me.  I love reading and I need to do it with you now.  Please!"

I sighed audibly (while doing inner cartwheels).  "OK," I said in an even tone.  "But then after that, I get to read out loud to you for a while."

THIS IS DEVELOPMENTAL PROCESS AT WORK.  Living proof.  I'm stunned by what's happening every day.  He's reading, I feel like shouting to the world.  He's reading!!!!  It's really happening, after waiting for almost six years!

His next goal, already planned before he's even finished his 21-day challenge: He wants to read well enough in the next few months so that he can start reading Harry Potter.  I still don't quite believe that it'll happen; in fact, I'm still not quite a believer that we've going to hit the current twenty-one day goal.

But I'm more than willing to continue to believe that when he's ready it's going to happen...and that maybe, just maybe, that time is now.


AHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!