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Pastimes : Let's Talk About Our Feelings!!! -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Edwarda who wrote (46146)	7/25/1999 1:23:00 AM
From: Grainne	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 108807

I am not sure what your point is, Edwarda, on the issue of the pro-reading environment in your house when you were growing up. I read all the same books that you did when you were a child, and grew up utterly surrounded by them, and by parents with advanced degrees who read and wrote and studied constantly. While you obviously flourished in that environment, I found it tedious, and especially resented the forced trips to museums and concerts ad nauseum. I have nothing against reading, but I strived for a balance with my own child, including a much wider variety of music and art and films and joyful, sensual experiences in general. And I did not let her begin kindergarten until she was almost six, because I subscribe to the Waldorf school theory that early reading, and early intellectuality in general, is not what children need for excellent brain development, and that in fact, large muscle activity and socialization and tactile experiences with natural materials, and plenty of fairy tales and drama are more stimulating, and that children should not learn to read or do any abstract learning activities until they are seven. I believed in this theory of learning so deeply that I religiously kept the house clear of alphabet blocks or any other reading or arithmetic learning toys. When I did think it was time to teach my daughter to read, she learned in two weeks, and reads now at a college level, we have a house that is full of books but there is not pressure to read any of them in particular, and my daughter loves words so much that she is starting to read her poems in public, at poetry readings. I, too, think that parents have a responsibility to try to ignite a lifetime love of learning in their children. I just have a totally different approach than you do, and I would assert that there are several different paths to the same end. In particular, I think reading to babies and small children is absolutely essential. My daughter had a library card when she was two. I just don't believe that early reading is in any way an essential part of this process, and in fact I think it is damaging, unless the child learns by osmosis, with no formal teaching at all.