Because this is what I find at the end of each day. Piles and piles of books spread around the house. All evidence of what Kai has been up to. In this stack is a mix of readers, science books, chapter books, even a random Abeka book. When I stop dictating what he needs to read and stop loading him down with vocabulary and spelling words each week, he follows his interests and ends up doing more than I would ever require of him.
I love those moments when he's reading and he stops to ask me what a word means. Often it's a book that I know he has read over and over again, and so it's interesting to me that he hasn't asked before about the definition of an unknown word. But for some reason, at the moment he asks, it has become important to him. I can watch his face as I tell him the definition and I know the new word is sinking into his vocabulary. No need to test or drill - he's got it. When children learn because they need to know something, that knowledge will stick. To see those moments of true learning happen is the very reason I've backed off.
I try to really value his questions, too, and let that direct our learning. If he wants to know something I usually say - remember that question and we'll google it. (95% of the time I do not know the answer myself!) We end up watching videos of how things are made or how things work or different animals online and the whole family is into it! Well, there's your science class! check! It is so much easier to teach something he wants to know, with his full interest and attention, then something that he's bored with or not interested in. That's the kind of learning that stays with you for life. I have to hold back to allow my children to make discoveries.
In saying this, I'm not saying I've dropped all required work. What I am saying is that I've noticed, as I hold back and create space for Kai, his natural curiosity is leading us in an exciting way. And in those moments I see in him such an intense expression and amazing focus. No lesson I design could ever create that moment or produce that depth of learning.
Tonight I had an incredible moment with Ezra that amazingly I captured on film. I have not worked with him at all, so everything he's learning is through osmosis. Tonight after his shower he asked if we could get out the letter blocks. So we sat on the floor to play a little bit and he just sat there and began to make words and sound them out all on his own. I didn't ask him to do that, or show him how, he just did it. You can see on his face the joy he is finding in making and sounding out a word on his own. He is able to concentrate and focus even with his brothers playing all around him. Some of the words he makes are not real words, but they're still fun to sound out.
I don't think this moment would have happened like this if I had been pushing him and drilling him to learn letter sounds, making him sit and do workbook pages. That type of work just kills the wonder and joy, especially at this age.
Seeing that moment is like seeing the joy of learning before my very eyes. I will do anything and everything to keep that joy and excitement alive.
