Do we need to teach children to write?

A reflection on children and writing for me today. Well actually not all children, but more specifically my child.  Last year my daughter was 7 and she told me she hated writing.  This year she is 8 and today she told me how much she LOVES writing. What a difference a year makes in the life of a child.  We have not done anything particularly different this year, but it just seems that she has found writing when she was ready to.  She was diagnosed with dyslexia at the end of last year and has had struggles with learning to read that had been a frustration to her.  I hated to see her struggle and her upset and we talked about ways we could support her. She wanted me to help her learn to read and I told her that I would find some things that were specifically designed to assist those with dyslexia and see how it went.  It turned out that the programs we tapped into were fun and the little bit of scaffolding I have given her has helped her immeasurably over a relatively short period of time.  She is able to decode words and read them by herself which is exactly what she wanted to be able to do.  Systematic phonics have really supported her and she feels empowered which is great.  I am wondering if this has had a knock on effect with her writing, or could it just be that she is surrounded by books, sees her Mummy writing and more importantly we have lots of conversation every day.  We are just through our everyday lives immersed in rich language and cannot escape it if we tried. We listen to many audio stories, she is read to, she reads what she can herself, she does drama classes, watches films and television, sings songs and from here she is able to imagine her own stories based on all of her own personal life experiences.  

We don’t focus on spelling.  It comes up when she asks and when we do Nessy which is a specific online reading program for those with dyslexia. Nessy helps us learn the rules of spelling which in turn can be very helpful to those with dyslexia.  Sometimes we forget the rules and sometimes not.  Dyslexia is a funny thing.  One day you can have a word's spelling seemingly concrete in your mind and the next it is gone or you can read a word on a page but not translate that written word to paper.  My daughter spells phonetically, which is very common with dyslexia and my son who is also dyslexic, still at the age of nearly 20 spells many words in the same way.  Does that matter?  Not for me. I have dyslexia too and spelling can be difficult for us. If someone can read it and it makes sense enough to understand then that is all that is important to me.  Sure support your child to learn the correct spelling but don’t make it a big deal if it is not something that comes easily to them.  Judgement of my spelling and writing really damaged my self esteem as a child and I don't want that for my children. I like to focus on what they can do.  Not what they can’t.  Their strengths are what may lead them on a path to their future careers.  My son is an amazing computer programmer and my daughter is a gifted musician for her age.  Whether they are great writers or not is not what is important to me but their love of learning what interests them is.  We do not do rote learning and I do not expect my child to learn spellings unless she asks.  What is interesting for me is that she does ask when it’s important to her and this has occurred whenever she is writing, so I don’t see the need for separate spelling tests.  

Recently it has become important to her to write her own narratives and she has been doing it non-stop all morning today.  It started with her enthusiasm for Charlie and the Chocolate Factory that she has been learning at her Musical Theatre class and she then decided that she wanted to write her own version.  It has made my heart sing seeing her enthusiasm for writing and her joy in sharing every single sentence she has written with me.  She reads and re-reads each time she adds to her story and she comes to share with me in whichever place I am in the house.  I am followed by my own little story teller.  She writes wherever she finds herself, her bed, my bed, the kitchen table and the study.  It has really made me stop and think today. Do we just over time become writers if we are interested in writing and are surrounded by rich language in all its forms?  No specific teaching but just as and when the want arises in the child and just from observation, hearing and doing.  That is what seems to have happened for my own daughter and I am wondering if I had forced her to write when she wasn't ready would I have turned off her desire to ever learn to write?

So many children in school hate writing and they get forced to do it every single day as part of the curriculum.  Sure writing is important in life.  It is a good skill to have but is that worthy of forcing it on a child that is not ready to learn it?  I have never taught her handwriting either.  She has just learned as she has gone along and I think her writing is lovely, especially her little curls on her y and g and the butterflies she draws above her i.  Her handwriting is a reflection of her.  A little piece of her individuality. The more I lead this life of natural learning, unschooling, child-led, life learning or whatever you wish to call it the more I see that it works.  It worked for my son who is now 19 and whom I removed from school when he was 9.  He is now in his final year of University studying software engineering and doing well. It also seems to be working for my daughter who has never been to school.  

I cannot help but question the need for all that is “taught” in school and of its necessity.  My daughter is showing me her growth in learning to write all the time and without the use of curriculum, coercion and bribes.  She has paper, a pencil and her imagination readily available to her.  She has access to the computer to type if she wants and she has me to support her on her path and to listen to all her questions, observations and ideas.  Not force her and not follow what someone else has said is the right way to teach writing and certainly not to make her write when she doesn't feel like it, nor critique her spelling and grammar ever step of the way.  I have often questioned whether I am failing my children in not covering all that they do in school but I can see that I am not and it makes me smile. A lot.  Her happiness is what is most important to me and damaging our relationship in the name of academics is not worth it for me. She is happy just the way things are and so am I.   

What does unschooling look like for us?

Some people really don’t seem to understand what unschooling is all about.  I once went on television with my family and was filmed in my home and our lives were discussed and quite frankly ridiculed by many, including a Dr of Education who felt that unschooling was putting a child at a disadvantage and that their interests would become too narrow if we just allowed them to dictate what is was they wanted to learn about.  He felt there was a real need for a national curriculum to give a child a broad and valid education.  I disagreed with him.  I think the way we live our lives is valid and that my children get a very broad education.  What is unschooling like for us? Every day is different but today it went something like this and to be quite honest I don’t even like to be called an “unschooler” – we just live our lives and learn along the way:-

My daughter Poppy woke early and had got herself some breakfast. It was a beautiful morning so we decided to take her dog for a walk and Poppy would ride alongside on her bike. Her Daddy slept on so she wrote him a little note to leave on the breakfast bar to let him know where we had gone and off we went to watch the sun rise and take in the waking morning together. On our walk we met so many lovely people that Poppy somehow managed to strike up a conversation with. She has such a knack for doing that!  She has no problems with social skills, communication and relating to people of all ages. It is actually a joy to see her in deep discussion with someone maybe six times her age with no inhibitions, just passing the day as she would with anyone whether old or young. Talking about her dog, their dog, the beautiful sunrise that we witnessed or whatever else captures her thoughts.

This morning was interesting as on the path as we walked along (well she cycled and I kind of ran/walked!) there was a top to tail procession of hairy caterpillars crossing in front of us. Where they had come from we did not know and where they were going we didn't know either, but they caused a real and captivating interest to us and others who happened to stumble upon them this morning.  They became another thing of interest to Poppy that we would have to find out more about later.  We continued on our way stopping to take photos of the majestic sky and marveling at its colours and the cloud formations. On we went, chattering all the way until we came to our favourite cafe where we stopped for a drink. Whilst I was inside ordering our drinks, Poppy waited at a public bench with Lily and her bike. I could see her through the window chatting away to a fisherman both animated and enjoying each other’s company. When I joined her we sat for a while watching the ocean enjoying our drinks and taking in the start of this day as the swallows swooped in front of us with their wing tips just skimming the ocean before sweeping with speed back up into the sky again.

Now for our homeward journey we set each other goals on how fast we could get from point to point. Lessons learned about time and distance and all with purpose and meaning to Poppy. When we got to a park Poppy had a play, swinging from monkey bar to monkey bar, soaring high into the tree tops on the swing, before joining me laying down on a bench to gaze through the branches at the clouds above and describe to each other what we saw in them. There were bears, dragons and dogs all moving with speed and elegance in the deep blue sky. Shimmers of sun flecked our faces as we sunk into the day happy and content. The last leg home involved more chats with fellow dog walkers, watching silver fish leap from the water and scurrying crabs across the rocks as the heat from the sun increased with the hands of our watches stretching to 8 o'clock. 

When we got home Poppy and I juiced some oranges and shared it between ourselves in tall glasses with lots of ice. We noticed that we were low on fruit so Poppy wrote out a shopping list of things that we would need to buy and then she fed the dogs and guinea pigs before heading off downstairs to play some music. Poppy is very musical and it is a big part of her life and I love that she can play her music whenever she likes and for however long she likes. I love the sound of music that fills our house - beautiful melodies drifting up the stairs whilst she plays her piano - it really lifts your spirits. She calls me down to listen to what she has composed. I sit in awe of her creativity, self-belief and confidence of which I was so lacking at her age. I watch her little face deep in concentration and at one with the music as she played. She asked me if I would like her to teach me what she has been playing and I smile knowing that my 8 year old will do that for me and do it well and that I will learn something new with her guidance. She may not have a graduate diploma in teaching because she doesn’t need one.  She just knows stuff and so she shows me and I learn from her passion and interest and it works for us in the same way as if maybe I know something she doesn’t and I share it with her if she wants me to.  We spent a couple of happy hours messing around making music together before our stomachs growled for food. We didn't need a bell to tell us when to eat.  We just listened to our internal body clock and off we went making lunch together as a team. Poppy deciding how much pasta we would need for us both, filling the kettle to boil the water and setting it upon the stove. We ate our lunch together in happy company with always something to chat about. Today it was Spain and how she would like to visit there.  She has been learning Spanish and she was testing out her little phrases on me and seeing how far she could count.  

As I washed up afterwards Poppy listened to Brainpop on her iPad learning so many interesting things that launched discussions on Greek Gods, Homer and poetry. I was amazed at how much she knew from listening to an audio story in the past of Troy and the Greek Legends.  She has dyslexia and does not read these books in the traditional way but ear reads them and it sticks for her.  That is how she learns best.  Her strength is in her auditory ability and her memory.  Being at home she can learn in the way that suits her best, unlike at school where she wouldn't have access to all these wonderful stories in an audio format.  From her listening about poetry she decided she wanted to write a poem herself so off she went and wrote one.  I didn't need to teach her how.  She just did it.  She asked about rhyme and this led into more discussion and reading of other poems that rhymed.  We talked about the descriptive words in her poem and how they were known as adjectives.  We looked at the form poems can take and the different kind of poetry and she was alight with it all and engaged and wanted to write more.  I scribed for her and she then typed it out all by herself.  She wants to continue with it and illustrate it with a view to writing more and putting them together in a book.  All of these are her ideas and not from any set curriculum or schedule that I have imposed.  It is just interest led learning coming from her and therefore it has meaning for Poppy and in doing so is more likely to stick in her memory.  On top of the bulk of our day I heard her playing Nessy on the computer which is a reading program for children with dyslexia, I heard her playing the steel drums on an iPad app, I heard her playing with her dog, I saw her doing some knitting and to end her day we went off to the pool where she played with a bunch of other kids and afterwards full with a day of rich and wonderful experiences she fell asleep still talking about her poem to me and what she wanted to do with it tomorrow.  

Does this unschooling way (if that is what you like to call it) sound like she is not learning? Does it sound like she is neglected or that I am not involved in her learning?  Does it sound as though she has narrow interests? Not in my eyes and I would be surprised if others thought so.  This is real living and learning and it works and we are happy with our life choices and for those who doubt it then I have to think that they are the ones who have not truly lived it and nor do they really understand what this way of living and learning is all about.  We all of us cannot help learning just by being alive and this was just a typical day in our lives amongst many loving, living and learning together and I wouldn’t change a thing ❤️