5 Most Hilarious Places I've Caught Macy Reading This Week

5. On the bus.
4. At the dinner table.
3. In the theater, minutes before the play opened.
2. Poolside, at the Hotsprings (she did eventually swim).
1. In the bathroom, while brushing her teeth.

My kids have finally gotten the reading bug. I knew it would happen. I wasn't freaking out or anything. I swear, I wasn't! We're unschoolers, after all. I'm not supposed to freak out if they aren't readers by the time they're 7 years old. And really, I wasn't. Did I already say that? But when the bug hit, I have to admit, I was thrilled. Validated, I suppose. After years of telling myself, and others, that I knew they would eventually become readers, it happened. Phew.

I can't believe I'm actually hearing myself say ridiculous things like, "Put that book down right now and ________(fill in the blank)!" This is a happy problem. Janey and Macy have an unspoken contest going to see who can start and finish a book earliest in the day. Yesterday morning, by the time I was out of bed, Janey had already finished two! We're making multiple trips to the library each week now and our favorite librarians are working hard for us trying to find the next series the girls can devour. Heavenly.

The Wonderful World of Words

In a post not long ago (in a land not far away.....sorry, I couldn't resist) I mentioned that my 6 year old son Charley is completely uninterested in learning to read. As an unschooler, this doesn't concern me in the least. He's six. He has years and years to learn. He is active and busy and noisy and full of concoctions and projects and ideas, and someday, he will want to learn to read. Because we don't sit down at the kitchen table each day to do lessons, our learning happens spontaneously, within the context of our daily life. Charley has spent six years listening to his sisters spell out words and read street signs and follow recipes and today, the light bulb went on. I love it when this happens. It must be like how an engineer feels when they drive across the bridge they designed many years before.

I was sitting at my desk and he wandered into the room. He stood next to me for a few moments and began doodling on a piece of paper. A few more moments passed and he said, "Mom, is vomit spelled v-m-m?" I absent minded-ly replied that he was missing a few vowels, but was darn close. A moment later, I glanced at his paper and realized he was attempting to write the word vomit. I smiled and pointed out that he was hearing two of the sounds. Together we sounded out the o and the i, and then the t and he proudly wrote v-o-m-i-t on the paper. "Wow, Charley, you just wrote the word vomit!" He beamed.

As he was turning to walk out of the room, he giggled. "Hey Charley," I called, "why do you need to know how to spell vomit anyway?" He continued giggling. A few moments later, he asked me how to spell the words you and are. Then he asked me for the tape. Okay, so maybe it's not so nice to tape nasty signs on your big sister telling the world that she is vomit, but Charley, my six year old son is learning to read, and I'm proud.

Everything's Harder When you Don't Feel Like Doing It

As I was tucking Macy, age 9, into bed last night, we had one of those sweet, late night conversations. Macy is my middle child and lives in the closet under the stairs. Seriously. Our house is small and we have had to get creative in figuring out how to fit three growing kids, a work from home mom, and various pets into our teeny, tiny 2 bedroom house. Macy was the perfect candidate for the Harry Potter room. It's a tight space and it's hard to fit all of her stuff in it, but she loves it.

When I tuck her in her bed at night I have to remember to crouch at just the right angle so as to avoid whacking the back of my neck on the doorway. Most days her stuff accumulates in her doorway and spills out into the living room. I end up kicking it back in so I can shut the door. At the end of the night, she has to wade through the pile to get to her bed and we have the same conversation each night as we are saying goodnight.

Macy: "Didn't I just clean this room?"
Me: "Seems like it, huh?"
Macy: "I'll do it first thing tomorrow, when it will be easier."
Me: "What about the morning makes it easier?"
Macy: "Everything's easier when you feel like doing it, you know?"
Me: "Yep, I know."

I got to thinking about the tasks that exist in my life that I rarely feel like doing: housework, filing papers, paying bills, reorganizing the growing pile of CDs on top of the stereo. And yet, regardless of my feelings about it, there are times when they must be done. In the course of a day, or a week, or even a month, they all, eventually, get done. But they are usually the tasks that are last on my list. Long after knitting, reading, running, writing, eating and sitting on the couch with the newspaper and a cup of tea. I try to remember this when I feel the need to pester my kids to get their things done. I know how it feels to not be in the mood. I'm often not in the mood.

A parent asked me the other day, "But what happens if my daughter never does want to learn how to read? What will I do then?" This is a parent who has been frustrated with her current schooling situation and wanted to know more about unschooling. Her daughter is creative and artistic and intelligent and could care less about reading. She's 8 years old. I suppose you could say it's last of her list. I feel for this mom, I really do. It must be agonizing to wonder if it really is possible to let go and trust kids to learn what they want, how they want, and when they want to.

"What if I regret unschooling later?" she asked. The answer for me is simple. I have always said that we will unschool as long as it is working. As soon as it isn't working anymore, we'll stop. I secretly know that this day will never come. My kids may decide someday that they're missing out, or there is something they want that school has to offer. I've told myself this may happen. When that day comes, I have told myself that if I truly am an unschooler, I will let them go. I will support them as best I can. And I will be ready and waiting when, and if, they decide to come back home.

Will this sweet, bright, artistic 8 year old never want to learn to read? I doubt it. But if she were my daughter, I suppose I would many, many more years before worrying about that eventuality. Unschooling has taught me to keep the focus on today. Do my children have what they need today? The answer is yes, for the most part. Macy's room is still messy. The pile of papers and unpaid bills still lies on my desk. Everything's harder when you don't feel like doing it.

Hey You Gu-uys!

Remember The Electric Company? It came out in the early 70s in response to a challenge the US Department of Education put out to the creators of Sesame Street: Teach kids to read on television. And for those of us who were watching TV in the early 70s, it worked! We rented The Best of The Electric Company recently. I was feeling nostalgic for the way television used to be and wanted to show my kids a bit of my childhood. Charley (age 6) watched it first. He came downstairs after about 20 minutes with a scowl on his face. "They're just trying to teach me to read, Mom. It's so boring." I was crushed. Was it really that bad? A few days passed and I still hadn't watched it, but I was curious. Macy (age 9) and I just watched a few episodes. It rocks.

I mean, who wouldn't want to have Morgan Freeman and Bill Cosby as their reading teachers? There's no question that the graphics and technology are way outdated, but the content and approach is right on.....an unschooler's paradise, really. It's funny, logical, and doesn't assume an audience of idiots. If only children's television today could be half as clever. In a 20 minute episode, Macy figured out the difference between hard and soft C sounds and the purpose of punctuation. She got the jokes and immediately tuned in to the repetitive nature of the sketches. It makes sense to me why Charley was bored by it. Although he says he wishes he could read, he totally not ready. He's far too active and physical right now to be bothered with sitting down with a book and figuring out how to decode words. Macy, on the other hand is primed and ready.

Macy began asking to learn to read about a year ago. In that time, we have sat down together on the couch with a stack of easy readers a half dozen times, so that she could practice reading to me. We only do that because she wants to. I have no other agenda except to cuddle up on the couch next to my sweet middle child and give her my full, undivided attention. A few weeks go by, I ask if she wants to read to me, and sometimes she does and sometimes she doesn't. As an unschooler, I don't believe that she needs me to do any more than that. If mAcy were in school, she would have learned to read three years ago. But at what cost? Our days without school are filled with questions and answers and investigating and exploring whatever comes our way, so it's not like we sit around and stare at the wall. We read together often throughout the day. I point out words and billboards and signs and print around us in the world all the time. There is no way my kids are not going to learn how to read. Janey (age 11) did, Macy is on her way, and no doubt, when he's ready, Charley will follow. Genius programming like The Electric Company just makes it more interesting.

I wonder if the "education experts" who wrote those first few episodes of The Electric Company had any idea how aligned their approach would be with unschooling. I'm sure they didn't. They were just meeting a challenge from the suits at the Dept. of Ed. to make learning novel and fun...imagine that? Sketch comedy, groovy music, singing, dancing. It's brilliant. Wouldn't we all want to do it, if it were fun? That's what gets me about so many people's idea of what "real" or "valuable" learning is. It can't be fun, it can't be easy or come naturally. It has to be difficult and painful, or it's not valuable. Maybe this comes from the idea that anything worth having must be hard to get. For me, the hard and difficult part only makes sense if it is something that the potential learner wants. If I want to learn to play the piano, the daily practice and difficulty of learning new pieces of music makes sense. It's something I want. Therefore, the difficulty, and the work, fits into my greater purpose: to learn to play the piano. If I don't want to learn to play the piano, it makes no sense.

Charley still thinks The Electric Company is boring. That's fine. He can do something else while we're laughing and the girls are secretly learning the rules of the English language. And maybe he'll wander in at just the right time and get something out of the program he may not have gotten another way. And maybe not. But no one is going to tell him it's time to sit down and watch and learn. He gets to decide. In the meantime, I'll re-live my childhood and giggle while much younger versions of Rita Moreno, Bill Cosby, and Morgan Freeman help me keep learning about words fun for my kids.