Growing up in a literate society

We are planning on sending the children to a local Sudbury school, which follows an unschooling or "non-school" model. When we went to the open house at the school, Carbon was very impressed by many aspects of it (especially that he could "just play all day" if he wants to), but when I pointed out the school library and how he could use it to explore his own interests, he exclaimed in dismay "but I can't read!". This led to a concern - will they read to him there?

I'm not worried about my kids learning to read, and that feels good. We had our struggles there for a little while, when Carbon and I were pushing reading and phonics and it just was horrible. And, looking back, it was all because I was nervous and embarrassed by his "being behind". In retrospect, however, we just had a vision development problem, solved fairly easily by a few months of vision therapy.

If there are no vision or neurological issues, a child in a literate society is going to learn how to read, as illustrated by this article from Psychology Today. I don't think there is anything wrong with a little reading instruction or "help" from a more capable reader, but I have no worries that my children will learn to read. We are surrounded by a literate society, and they are growing up in a literate family.

We read aloud everyday, sharing good books as a family.

My husband and I read in front of the kids everyday, books, magazines, blogs, forums, letters, cookbooks, instruction manuals, other materials.

We write letters and cards and emails to family and friends.

We make a weekly trip to the library and check out hundreds of interesting books a month.

Anytime we are curious about anything my husband whips out his phone and googles it and then reads the answer he finds out loud.

For work I memorize many stories, which I read, type out, print, read again, and say out loud a couple of times. That is my process for memorization, and most of it is done in front of the kids.

We don't have TV, but we do have internet on our TV screen, so the kids have to navigate to find things they want to watch.

Both my husband and I are on the computer a lot, doing email, facebook, blogging - writing in other words.

We text message.

It's all the written word, and our family is soaking in it.