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\u201cI would be most content if my children grew up to be the kind of people who think decorating consists mostly of building enough bookshelves.\u201d ~Anna Quindlen, “Enough Bookshelves\u201d <\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n I did find enough, however, and I was also blessed to find a family who had a natural reader to compare the printed data with. My observations, coupled with the studies in teaching journals, etc., led me to find what I called the \u201cenvironment\u201d in which natural readers are raised. This led me to other lines of thinking\u2014if a child can learn to read with absolutely no instruction in a literary-saturated environment, wouldn\u2019t this environment be conducive to helping those who DO receive instruction learn to read better, more easily, and more naturally?<\/p>\n The answer, of course, was yes. Study after study shows the type of environment that causes kids to learn better. Duplicating the \u201cnatural reader\u2019s\u201d environment can only help our kids learn better. Maybe our creating this \u201cliterary atmosphere\u201d will not automatically make our six year old pick up a book and begin reading, but if it makes the learning process (actually any\/all learning processes) easier, more enjoyable, and less stressful, why wouldn\u2019t we want to duplicate it in our homes for all of our kids?<\/p>\n So what were the commonalities I found in studying the environment of \u201cnatural readers\u201d?<\/p>\n 1. Interaction with adults<\/strong>\u2014these kids were with adults a lot\u2014and definitely not around peers more than adults. They had adults on hand to discuss things with, to answer their questions, and to provide examples of proper speech patterns, etc.<\/p>\n 2. Much book handling by the child<\/strong>\u2014these children were surrounded with books that they were permitted to interact with. They were often found at very young ages with stacks of books around them, just looking at the pictures, making stories in their minds from the pictures, etc.<\/p>\n 3. Print abounds and interest in print is evident by itself<\/strong>\u2014not only did the homes of natural readers contain books themselves, but they also contained all type of print. The parents of these children read magazines, journals, newspapers, etc. I think the \u201cinterest in print\u201d part probably began with something like a parent saying, \u201cHoney, look at this whale they found beached on the coast of Florida,\u201d as he or she brought the little one up on to her lap to see the picture that was provided with the article in today\u2019s newspaper, etc. This type of activity causes a child to become interested in print.<\/p>\n 4. Audios and books are used<\/strong>\u2014This is the reason why I began using book and tape sets a few times a week for my preschoolers and elementary children\u2014and why we have used audios (talking books, radio dramas, etc.) every week of our lives since our oldest was one year old. Audios and books show our children the benefits and \u201cfun\u201d that reading provides.<\/p>\n 5. Memorization takes place<\/strong>\u2014these natural readers often followed a certain pattern\u2014they memorized a picture book (usually many), then through the memorization, they began making print-sound-word connections. That is, when they turned the page and recited, \u201cIf you give a mouse a cookie,\u201d they began to understand that i-f says if and y-o-u says you. Natural readers were experts at memorizing large portions of text.<\/p>\n 6. Interest in writing words and \u201clanguage experience\u201d activities<\/strong>\u2014many years ago, there was a movement in education to replace phonics instruction with \u201clanguage experience\u201d activities (also called a \u201cwhole language approach\u201d). Phonics proponents everywhere were up in arms at the thought of \u201cactivities\u201d of writing what the child said (dictation) for him, making little homemade books, etc. taking the place of phonics instruction. While I am a strong phonics proponent, I believe that these \u201clanguage experiences\u201d and \u201cwhole language\u201d activities augment reading instruction greatly. And, of course, the natural readers in the research were exposed to these types of activities early and often. These kids were the ones who dictated thank-you notes to Mom to go to grandparents and colored a picture to send along with it; they were the ones who had a chalk board in the kitchen in which Mom or Dad wrote the day of the week each morning; they were those who \u201csaid\u201d stories aloud and parents copied it in little \u201cjournal\u201d books for the child. And on and on. Why wouldn\u2019t these types of experiences and activities increase a child\u2019s relationship with print and love for learning?<\/p>\n 7. Experiences related to literacy and books<\/strong>\u2014these obviously include the types of activities listed in number six, but these kids knew from birth that books and reading were important. They were the ones in a double stroller at the library lawn sale as toddlers\u2014child in front seat with back seat full of picture books. They were the ones who had their own \u201cbook basket\u201d in the corner of the nursery almost from birth. In other words, they were immersed in literacy and books from an early age.<\/p>\n 8. Self-regulated behavior and risk taking<\/strong>\u2014This characteristic related to how they \u201corganize\u201d their little lives. These kids would pull all of the Curious George books off the shelf and stack them up to look at after lunch. They often had little learning systems in place at ages four and five. And they were not afraid to be wrong. This, of course, stems from not being talked down to or made fun of when they did ask questions. These kids were risk takers because taking risks in learning (\u201cMommy, is this word (dapper) \u2018Daddy\u2019?\u201d) yielded information that helped them in their quest to learn. The questions did not yield put downs or \u201cyou should already know this.\u201d<\/p>\n 9. Read to often<\/strong>\u2014Obviously, a link has to be made from the squiggles on the page to the sounds that those squiggles make in order for a young child to teach himself to read. Thus, a child must be read to (or follow along with books and tapes) in order to learn to read without formal instruction. Now, this is not to say that a child who is read to will automatically learn to read early and on his own. I read aloud to our first three kids three to five hours everyday for years and years\u2014and not one of the three was a natural, or early, reader! But it certainly created a love for print and learning in my children!<\/p>\n Children who learn to read naturally, without reading instruction, are raised in an environment that is conducive to learning to read naturally\u2014an environment that creates a love for learning and a very perceived need to learn.<\/p>\n While I have never had a natural reader myself, I tried all throughout my children\u2019s learning days to create this type of environment. It has created outstanding learners and avid readers in the Reish home.<\/p>\n One of the \u201crules\u201d that Ray and I had for our children\u2019s early education was that if something could be taught informally (and painlessly), we would teach it that way (as opposed to using workbooks or \u201ccurriculum\u201d for something that can just as easily be learned while driving down the road or snuggling on the sofa).<\/p>\n That is one thing that I truly loved about the \u201cnatural reader learning environment.\u201d Why get a workbook to teach capital letters when you can teach them while you are running errands (from all of the store signs)? Why get a program for rhyming words when nursery rhymes, silly songs, and I spy games on the road can do the job without the stress? The \u201cnatural reader learning environment\u201d fit how we thought young children should be taught\u2014regardless of whether our kids truly became natural readers or not.<\/p>\n Here are just a few of the skills that the research on natural readers indicated are learned\/enjoyed by kids in this environment:<\/p>\n 1.<\/strong> Contact with print<\/p>\n 2.<\/strong> Thinking skills<\/p>\n 3.<\/strong> Comprehension (especially when a wide variety of materials is presented and discussion follows)<\/p>\n 4.<\/strong> Expanded vocabulary<\/p>\n 5.<\/strong> Enunciation and pronunciation<\/p>\n 6.<\/strong> Love of and need for reading<\/p>\n 7.<\/strong> Sentence patterns<\/p>\n 8.<\/strong> Relationship between parent and child\u2014the most important one of all, of course!<\/p>\n Create a \u201cnatural reader learning environment\u201d in your home\u2014regardless of your kids\u2019 ages\u2026.and watch the interaction with print increase; the love for learning grow; and the positive relationships bloom.<\/p>\n Whether you have a five year old who taught herself to read or an eight year old still struggling with primers, I encourage you to create a reading environment–and build life-long readers and learners! Blessings on your teaching and children!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" \u201cI would be most content if my children grew up to be the kind of people who think decorating consists mostly of building enough bookshelves.\u201d ~Anna Quindlen, “Enough Bookshelves\u201d During my graduate studies (in Reading Specialist) at Ball State University, I did a master\u2019s thesis about children who learn to read without any reading […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_mi_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[628,82],"tags":[101,270,294,255,366,289,364,365],"yoast_head":"\n
\n<\/span>During my graduate studies (in Reading Specialist) at Ball State University, I did a master\u2019s thesis about children who learn to read without any reading instruction. That is, the kids just suddenly started reading books without ever having phonics lessons, basal readers, or other \u201cformal instruction.\u201d It was a challenging thesis simply because there is so little data about it because of our \u201cearly school attendance age.\u201d Seldom does a child learn to read \u201cnaturally\u201d before age six or seven, and with kids going to school at age five (and often beginning reading instruction in kindergarten), the research was sparse concerning these \u201cinstruction-less\u201d readers.<\/p>\nCommon Characteristics of Natural Readers<\/h3>\n