Homeschool Reading Problems - When a Child Won't Learn to Read

My son never wanted to look at numbers or letters. From the time he was very young he absolutely hated Sesame Street with a passion. He totally rejected the educational value of that show.

He loved trains, so while trying to teach him how to count (and becoming very frustrated with his inability and unwillingness to do so) I made a large construction paper wall decoration in the shape of a steam train - each car having a number on it. He didn't especially like that because I was using it to teach numbers. This boy was very resistant to learning numbers and letters!

I had an older child, also homeschooling, who loved learning to read. She enjoyed completing reading and math workbooks just for fun while getting ready to sleep each night. But none of that rubbed off on my son. He was active and talkative, and quite intelligent, but the printed letters and numbers turned him off.

These were not my only children, by the way. My oldest son learned to read at age four because I read to him daily and he just picked it up by having the same books read to him over and over. My two oldest daughters learned to read in a public school setting in their first grade classrooms. I've had five children - these three, and the two who were homeschooled. (They were much younger than the other three children.)

During elementary school years he would not cooperate for writing or math. He loved being read to - both picture books, and later, novels. I read as many quality children's novels to my kids as I could - and they both loved it and looked forward to it as an important part of our day.

I took him to the nearby mental health office and asked for dyslexia testing. They had an intern test him and her results? That MAYBE he was dyslexic and that I should read to him more. Gee thanks! I didn't know where else to turn for help.

The articles I read, written by other homeschooling moms regarding children who were slow to read, all said that I shouldn't worry, and should instead just wait patiently. They said that at the right time my child would pick up reading skills automatically, almost overnight, on their own. I waited, and waited, and waited.

When my son was ten, a friend with more stamina than I had at that point, agreed to teach my son to read. He used the book, Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons and together they worked through the entire book. Results - my son learned to read on a first grade level. Yay!

After that we stumbled through a few more years of homeschool without much improvement. I didn't have the stamina to teach such a resistant child how to improve reading skills. He could find a million ways to keep from learning more about how to read. I finally realized he was no longer making progress.

That winter I volunteered to cook at our community Christmas dinner. One of the other cooks was the high school special education teacher. I swallowed my feelings of guilt and shame, and for the sake of my son told her I was having a huge problem with getting him to read. She of course invited me to enroll him in the public school.

That was a huge step for me - because I totally believed in homeschooling and thought I should have been able to do it better. My other child's reading skills were and are outstanding, but this one wouldn't read at all if he could get out of it. He was supposed to come to my office for reading practice each day. I had an office downtown in our very small town, where I was trying to work to earn money - self-employed at my webdesign business. Too many days he didn't show up, and I knew I couldn't give him the attention he needed to correct his reading disability. Keeping his mind on a page was a HUGE struggle. So I enrolled him in the public school's special education program.

They eventually did test him and found he has dyslexia - something I knew all along. He learned differently than most other children. Sure enough, he was intelligent and had a great memory for things he learned on television documentaries, for example. His mechanical reasoning skills are supreme. He's just a different kind of person and somehow reading and math interfere with his own personal process style.

The high school special ed teacher and her aide worked with my son for three years, trying to get him to read better. I'm sorry to say he resisted learning there too, and frustrated those who tried to help him. I totally understood how they felt! When he left high school he was reading on a second grade level.

At times I've felt a lot of guilt for homeschooling him when he could have been in special ed at a public school, but then I remember that the public school system produces a lot of illiterate children! My son certainly isn't the only child in the world with reading problems! If the public school system could make all dyslexic children read at a high reading level maybe I should feel guilty, but that's just not the case. Children are unique and vary in their abilities. I truly believe my son has a calling in this world and reading is not it. He's got other talents!

Being in high school was good for him, for another reason. He was able to take shop classes three periods out of the day, and he excelled in those. Any work with his hands he quickly became expert in. Soon he was teaching other students how to weld.

After he got out of high school he got a job working as a school maintenance worker, and has held several other jobs since then. He does great at his work and on his days off enjoys working on bikes and on ATV or ride-on lawnmower mechanical issues.

He became interested in YouTube and can exchange simple messages there. He loves to make YouTube videos and owns two video cameras. I was thrilled when he took up videoblogging as a hobby because it means that although he doesn't do email, I'll still be able to stay in contact with him online even if we end up living many miles apart.

I wrote out this story because I want other homeschooling parents to know that if their child has a reading problem, there's no guarantee that the child will eventually pick up reading on their own. Those articles I read (written by other homeschool moms) misled me into thinking I should not worry about my son's reading problem. Now I believe that if I'd put him in school earlier he might be able to read better now. Unfortunately we live in a remote area where there are no private schools or tutoring services. If I'd lived near a tutoring service I would have definitely tried that route.

Even though my son resisted reading (and to a lesser degree, math) we had wonderful experiences as a homeschooling family. My children were encouraged to follow their interests and to learn about what they loved. We took lots of homeschool field trips and educational vacations. We read a lot of books together - educational books and fiction. It was a good time I look back on with happy memories, and I hope my children do the same.

My homeschool site: Independent Homeschooling.

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