What we (don't) do for preschool

I tell people that Rhonda is homeschooled for preschool. And, well, that is objectively true: she's not going to an outside preschool.

But honestly? She's not really getting "schooled."

When it comes down to it, my philosophy for preschool this year is kind of to not really do preschool.

Now, there are certain "school-ish" things I've been doing, more to get her excited about learning and to ease us both into the homeschool life. We have morning time everyday (more on that later), we go on nature walks (when we can), and I've been putting a lot more emphasis on chores and what one might call "life skills" (learning to cook, clean, and do things for herself like get dressed and brush her teeth). We read aloud a lot (still not as much as I would like because #toddlerlyfe). We've been playing in sensory bins lately. She also takes a dance class.

To some people, this could seem like a lot of activities for someone who supposedly isn't "doing school," but conspicuously absent from this list are the things that one might typically expect a child to be taught in preschool: reading, writing, and basic math (or at least numbers).

If Rhonda were really interested in learning to read, I would teach her now. And to be honest, I have been a little impatient in the past and started trying to teach her, but she quickly lost interest and didn't want to do reading lessons after a few days, or just goofed around instead of following my instructions.

Rhonda knows all her letters and their sounds (or at least, she's learned all their sounds in the past even though she may have forgotten them by now because we don't review them all the time). If she were ready to read, she could read. She has all the necessary building blocks to start; she just doesn't want to start building.

And from everything I've read, that's perfectly okay and normal. The Read-Aloud Handbook taught me that many children actually aren't cognitively ready to learn to read until the age of six or seven. Rhonda can certainly wait until at least kindergarten age to learn to read. And let's be clear: if she were in public school, this wouldn't even be her last year of preschool. Since she was born in December, she still has one more year of preschool before she would be admitted to a kindergarten class. So the way I see it, I have at least two years that I must force myself to calm down about whether or not she can read before I can allow myself to freak out and convince myself that she will be the only adult of her generation who never learned to read and will live under a bridge the rest of her life. What I'm saying is, I'm cool, guys. 

I'm also definitely not convinced that there's any good reason to start teaching handwriting before a child even gets a handle on reading. It doesn't even make sense to me. Certainly, a child who doesn't learn to write until the age of six could very quickly catch up to her peers. Now, again, if Rhonda really wanted to learn to write, I would help her. She has shown some vague interest in the past, but I've tried to let it just be natural instead of jumping in and making her do writing drills.

As far as math, all I feel inclined to do at this point is help her read numbers up to 100. Sometimes we do really basic addition. And when I say we "do" it, I don't mean I sit her down at the kitchen table and start writing out equations. I mean that maybe she's playing with blocks, and I say, "Oh, you have two blocks. Here are three more. How many do you have now? One, two, three, four, five. Five blocks! Two plus three is five." She may not even participate in this conversation (although she does, more often than not). These are the kinds of things that I think most parents do without even thinking about them.

Next year, I do have a lot more fun stuff planned (more on this to come!), but I'm still not planning on teaching reading, writing, or math--or at least, I'm not planning on making a plan. I'll look for more informal opportunities to teach math, and when Rhonda decides she's ready to read, I'll start teaching her at whatever pace she likes.

I do admit, although I'm not too worried about the math and writing, I'm not nearly so easy-breezy about waiting to teach reading; the thought of letting Rhonda decide when reading instruction will happen kind of gives me heart palpitations. Our society does not smile kindly upon late readers, especially homeschooled ones. But the mantra that always calms me down is something my mom said to me: "No child that loves books as much as Rhonda does would not learn to read." And that's the truth: Rhonda just loves books. I know few children her age who love books as much as she does. She would love to be read to for hours every day, and at some point almost every day she can be found quietly sitting and looking at books. I have no doubt that someday, she's going to say to herself, "I have just got to know what these words say, and I don't want to have to wait until Mom is ready to read to me. I want to read it myself!" And whenever that day comes, we'll start learning to read.