Art of Homeschooling Podcast
Join Jean Miller, a homeschooling mom of three grown children, for enlightening stories, strategies, interviews, and encouragement to help you thrive as a homeschooling parent. In each episode, Jean helps you let go of the overwhelm and get in touch with inspiration. You CAN create a homeschool life you love. And here on this podcast, we keep it sweet and simple to help you develop the confidence you need to make homeschooling work for your family. Look for new episodes every Monday.
Art of Homeschooling Podcast
The Science of Reading & Waldorf Education
EP209: Welcome to a deep dive into the science of reading and Waldorf education. On this episode of the podcast, Jean is joined by her assistant Sarah to share with you new insights about the literacy journey through the holistic lens of Waldorf education.
Waldorf education, since its founding in 1919, has evolved significantly. And homeschoolers are in a unique position to weave together “responsible innovation” in the Waldorf movement with new insights and research about human brain development.
Jean and Sarah discuss all things literacy ~ from oral language development to content knowledge, from neural pathways to simple strategies for teaching.
This is a rich discussion! Listen, take notes, and dig into the resources and links mentioned.
Find the Show Notes here https://artofhomeschooling.com/episode209/
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You're listening to the Art of Homeschooling podcast, where we help parents cultivate creativity and connection at home. I'm your host, jean Miller, and here on this podcast you'll find stories and inspiration to bring you the confidence you need to make homeschooling work for your family. Let's begin. Hello everyone and welcome. I'm Jean, the homeschooling mentor at Art of Homeschooling and inside the Inspired at Home community, and I'm joined today by my wonderful assistant, sarah. Hi, sarah, sarah is a homeschooling mother of four and is brilliant at bringing skills development to children her own and also helping lots of homeschooling parents get more comfortable with skills development for their own families. So Sarah is also in the process of doing training with the Rooted in Language program, which is really a wonderful thing because she can share a lot of specific examples with us, which is always really helpful.
Speaker 1:So we thought we'd bring you a conversation today about learning to read with Waldorf and the new science of reading. So we're excited to share our experiences and insights about Waldorf-inspired reading and writing instruction. The Waldorf movement has really evolved since its founding in 1919, which was a while ago, by the way and we're in this time of flow new discoveries about how children learn to read and this idea of responsible innovation, which I'll talk a little bit more about in a bit. But I also want to say that as homeschoolers, we're in a unique position to benefit from both mainstream research about reading and learning and teaching, all those conversations in the field of education, as well as the evolution of the Waldorf approach, and also being able to individualize teaching to meet the needs of our own children. So we're going to dive into the science of reading, how children learn to read, what this journey looks like, and give you some really specific tips and examples.
Speaker 1:So the science of reading from a homeschooling perspective. You may have heard of the science of reading. The public really has this view of the science of reading that it's a new curriculum and that it's back to basics with phonics, and neither of those are entirely true. It's really a body of research and that has been really helpful to me as I've explored this myself. It's really looking at how children learn to read by observing brain scans, which is pretty fascinating, right. Brain scans, which is pretty fascinating, right With the technology of MRIs, these can show us what's going on in a child's brain while they're learning to read. So we can benefit from this new science of reading, and as homeschoolers, we also are the ones who know our children best. So we have that wonderful combination of learning more about how children learn to read, but also observing our own child and being able to customize, personalize our lessons to meet them right where they are.
Speaker 1:I just want to remind everybody that, when it comes to teaching reading, the development of a child's learning to read takes a lot of patience. Those of us who have been through this know it right, and there's really more to reading than just phonics. It's a complicated process. How children learn to read that is one of the discoveries of the science of reading is that it's not a simplistic process. So here's the official definition that I wanna give you, and then we're gonna start talking a little bit more about reading and the brain and what that looks like. So the science of reading is a body of research that reveals how children learn to read.
Speaker 1:The science of reading movement endorses a systematic, explicit approach to teaching children letters and sounds, coupled with efforts to give all children a broad base of content knowledge, which is critical for comprehending what they read. We'll unpack a lot of this as we go along, right, because it can be a lot to take in, and Sarah and I both have done so much reading, listening to podcasts, exploring this idea and all of the new science of reading. We've been doing this, sarah, longer than I have right, so for over a year. For me it's probably been the last six to nine months. But here are some facts about the reading brain.
Speaker 1:The human brain is wired for learning to speak, but in order to learn to read, the brain has to actually reorganize itself. Fascinating idea. So different parts of the brain need to be linked in order for that to happen Speech parts of the brain, and then parts of the brain that process visual information. So the brain is being rewired as children learn to read. This is part of the new science of reading what's been discovered. So the brain actually reorganizes its neural pathways to learn to read. That's a requirement really right for learning to read.
Speaker 1:So I want to share a quote from an article called why Waldorf Works from a Neuroscientific Perspective. It's by Regalina Melrose. This article is available in the online Waldorf library and we'll have a link to it in the show notes. And here's the quote the brain operates optimally when all its parts are equally developed, valued and engaged. Why Waldorf works is because it does just that. So we're going to talk about how different aspects of the Waldorf approach are really aligned with the science of reading, and then also talk about some additional specific strategies that you can use to help your own children. I'm going to turn it over to Sarah.
Speaker 2:And I'm going to jump in with just a few comments about how the Waldorf approach really complements this new brain science, the science that is telling us that there are links between the oral and speaking parts of our brain and the visual, reading and writing parts of our brain that really need to develop as the child learns. The natural development is through oral language, but reading is a fairly recent development in the course of human history. So learning to read all starts with speech and language and, as Waldorf instructors, educators, homeschoolers, the approach of teaching with main lesson blocks provides a really broad base of content knowledge, which is critical for children to understand what they read. Waldorf starts in the younger grades with getting deep into things like mythology and folktales and then moves quickly into history and the sciences with broad content. So the neural pathways of the brain are really going to develop more robustly when this process of writing, along with the process of reading, is included. So it's this active process of writing that leads to the receptive process of reading and in Waldorf we start with finger plays, with lullabies, with tongue twisters, with reciting poetry. There's such a rich oral tradition in Waldorf education to support speaking and listening and how we link speaking and listening to reading and writing, to reading and writing.
Speaker 2:So in the Waldorf approach we often think about head, heart and hands, and in Waldorf all learning starts with the hands.
Speaker 2:So writing is the active part of reading. It's the action of writing that we do with our hands and then it inspires the heart through the meaning of that writing, through the stories and the emotions and the feelings and the imagination, and then we receive the learning into the head as we develop the cognition. So this analogy of head, heart and hands can really work through the whole process of reading and the bottom line is that reading should be taught through the action of writing. There's a really great quote, to kind of summarize this, from a new book Writing to Read the Steiner-Waldorf Way, yep, and we'll include links to these as well. So the authors state that we advocate the fundamental Waldorf pedagogical principle that children should be shown how to write before they read. They should work with the active principle before the passive, initially prioritizing the creative over the receptive. So this really illustrates clearly how the Waldorf approach matches with the science of reading, in that writing, reading and oral language are so linked.
Speaker 1:And I just want to point out here and share a few thoughts about how teaching evolves over time. Right, sarah and I were both trained as classroom teachers before we had children and chose to homeschool, and I know some of the things I learned in graduate school have just changed, completely changed. You know, about recommendations for teaching and learning, so specifically about reading. In the past maybe 50 years or so in the field of education, so much has changed about how to teach reading and as homeschoolers we benefit, like I said in the beginning, from these conversations and are also in the position to look at the children before us and bring them what they need, which is something that Steiner really wanted the teachers in that very first school. He really encouraged them to do that, and in a homeschool setting we're in a unique position to be able to do that right.
Speaker 1:And so within the Waldorf movement in particular, there's also been an evolution.
Speaker 1:So the Waldorf approach was founded, the first school opened in 1919, which is over 100 years ago and the initial descriptions of how to teach reading were have children make main lesson books right, it was still a writing to reading approach but have children write summaries and main lesson books and then read back their own writing.
Speaker 1:And then, around the time that the movement was celebrating its 100th year anniversary in 2019, there began to be these conversations using this phrase responsible innovation, and teachers began to really open up and share how we could take the approach and bring it to life for today, and part of that conversation has been how children learn to read, how we want to teach writing and reading specifically. So I find it really interesting that there are these two books. The first book that came out about teaching language arts really is called the Roadmap to Literacy. It's a very large book and it's a guide to teaching language arts in Waldorf schools, grades one through three. It has a lot of good information in it. It can be very overwhelming to use, especially for, I think, homeschooling parents, and even since that was published, this new science of reading now is influencing what we do.
Speaker 1:So I just wanted to mention that. I want everyone to keep in mind that teaching is never stagnant. It really does like how we teach, and approaches to teaching certain subjects really do evolve over time, which is actually a good thing, right, and it's something that we want to keep in mind as we're homeschooling our own kiddos. And then more recently, this writing to reading book, the Steiner-Waldorf Way, comes along and it is a lot easier to use as a homeschooling parent and has a really good overview of specific strategies that can go along with what we're talking about today.
Speaker 2:And I'll just say quickly, to add to that conversation about the two different resources, that the Roadmap to Literacy really brought to light this idea that English is such a different language than German and that meant the original Waldorf schools were teaching reading in a completely different language system than English. English has taken the phonics of German, along with French and Latin and Spanish and Old English and Old Norse, and given us so many more phonemes than are present in German. So the reading and writing of English takes more effort, more time to create those connections in the child's brain and then take that idea, combine that with the new science of reading and that's where we get writing to reading the Steiner-Waldorf way. So it's really it's been an evolving process and it will continue to change, I'm sure.
Speaker 1:Yes, thank you.
Speaker 2:Yeah, okay.
Speaker 2:So now we'll jump into kind of a breezy review of the reading and writing journey for a Waldorf inspired homeschooler.
Speaker 2:We'll start with pre-literacy, and pre-literacy includes a lot of oral language, so this is where your lullabies, finger plays, poems, songs and stories all come into play. Also for the child learning to orient to time yesterday, tomorrow, and also to space when is their body in space, as they learn to move in a rhythmic way. That includes fine motor skills, learning how to hold a crayon, the rhythm of the day, the rhythm of the seasons, your family rhythms, and a real gentle introduction to the letters of the alphabet. The child's name is the perfect place to start with learning the names of the letters, what the letters look like and how we can make meaning out of print on paper. Also, family names and special words such as happy birthday, merry Christmas the really important words that your children see you writing on cards or gifts and might want to say I want to write that too. Can I sign the card too? These are things that you know children see every day and it's so nourishing for them to gently be brought into that world. Love that.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah and that and just the. Also the importance of the alphabet song. It's so traditional and seems so simple but it provides a really important foundation as well as counting. It's so natural to count. Let's count the steps on the way up to bed. We count with our children all the time and we can be sharing the letters. We can make the letters in their name into a song so that they can learn to sing the letters in their name into a song, so that they can learn to sing the letters in their name. Just really being playful and gentle with the child but also slowly bringing them into that world of literacy. And then starts the beginning of the true journey, which is in grade one.
Speaker 2:There are two kind of vocabulary words that are good to know as you start working with the alphabet in grade one, and those are phoneme and grapheme. So when you think of the telephone, the phone is what you hear and a phoneme is the smallest distinct unit of speech. So it's not a word, it's not a letter, it's a sound, and it can be really hard to kind of break free from what we already know about words and letters and just listen to the pure sound, such as in the word moth. We know there are four letters in the word moth but when you think about the pure sound you're only hearing three sounds. That's a pretty easy example. But there are some words where it is really hard to decipher the phonemes, especially if we've studied, you know, any kind of foreign language and we really know a lot about letters and words. To get back to that pure sound is hard. And then the opposite of the phoneme is the grapheme, and this is the smallest unit in our writing system. So the grapheme for the th sound, as in moth, has two letters, t and H, and those are a team. This is a grapheme. Graph is writing, writing. So the phoneme and the grapheme are two really important concepts for the parent to understand, as you're beginning this journey with your child.
Speaker 2:So in Waldorf we meet these letter sounds through stories and they can be introduced really in any order. Different programs have suggested different orders for learning the letters. The Roadmap to Literacy has one suggested order. Writing to Reading has another suggested order. But truly research does not dictate the order that you introduce the letters. The most useful thing for the child is to learn a handful of letters that they can quickly begin to put together to make words because when they see the purpose and the meaning for the letters it gets really exciting to see that all of a sudden I can communicate. I love you, mom. With letters. Oftentimes in the Waldorf approach we'll wait for maybe the second or the third main lesson block to introduce those vowel sounds. But it's very meaningful and suggested in writing to reading the Waldorf Steiner way, that we go ahead and bring those five vowel sounds at the end of the very first language arts block so that right away you can get into building words, which and reading words and writing words, which is the exciting part of the journey.
Speaker 1:And it's so interesting because when I first started homeschooling, which was in the 1990s, the recommendation from Waldorf classroom teachers was to wait until the beginning of second grade to do that lock on introducing the vowels. So that's one of the things that's really changed, and I just find it fascinating that it isn't just someone's opinion. It's based on the science of how children learn to read, and to me that just makes all of this so much richer.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's a small tweak to a really beautiful process, but you know I didn't even develop that idea with any of my four kids either.
Speaker 2:But it makes sense and you know you can see when you teach those vowels that the light bulbs go off, especially when you introduce them through such a meaningful way as the Waldorf approach.
Speaker 2:There's the traditional stories about using the angels to teach the vowels. There's the idea of using, like calling them laughing letters or singing letters, where they each sing their sound. And then I just developed an idea of my own because I had pretty rambunctious, creative bouncy kids and I knew they needed something a little more tangible than the idea of angels. So I used the Bramantown musicians and all of the characters had a different explanation, you know, throughout the story and it was so memorable and meaningful for them to remember those expressions in the story. So we bring these letters and their sounds and their shapes through story and, yeah, we use the simple two-day rhythm which carries throughout all of our lessons in Waldorf and it's perfect for this introduction to the alphabet. So, using a fairy tale or a folk tale or any story that has a really strong image that starts with your target letter and then draw a picture from the story with that image on day one, and then, day two, revisit the story and bring the letter, learn how to draw the letter with crayons or with chalk or in a sand tray or with play-doh, however you want to bring the form of that letter and then practicing how to make that letter while saying the sound of that letter, so really linking the sound to the shape letter, so really linking the sound to the shape, the sound to the action of drawing that letter. And this is where we link the speech to print, which is so, so important and this is one of our really top three concrete tips that we hope that you'll take from this chat is that when your child is writing, you can say the sound of the letter that you're making while you write. So we say our sounds as we write.
Speaker 2:So if you're drawing a row of C's form, the shape of the C, the shape of the C and as your hand is moving, so that your child's really bringing that active learning to the process.
Speaker 2:It's not just a passive process, it's a really active process. So bringing those letters one at a time, hearing the story, bringing the image to life for them, and then learning how to draw them and linking that sound with the movement not just the visual shape but the movement of the letter of that first main lesson block to get started right away with reading and writing. From there you can build into writing short sentences. You can use manipulatives like stones with the letters drawn on them, or wooden letters, plastic letter tiles, magnets on your refrigerator just anything that can bring this into your child's hands to build words too. And then using speech and poetry and eventually practicing together, doing some reading together in a reader that has decodable text that your child can confidently identify all the graphemes that they'll meet in that book. So that's just a real quick introduction to that big first part of the journey.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and so I have a few things I want to add as we think about continuing the journey. But those first three years are really the most important to give a solid foundation in reading and writing. So we follow these steps right of language, of literacy learning, continuing to introduce the phonemes and their related graphemes in the first, second and third grades in particular. Beyond, as needed, through story poems, tongue twisters, creative writing experience, as Sarah has said. I do want to point out that our goal is not to explicitly teach every minute detail of decoding the English language, and I think that's where some parents get really overwhelmed right With how many of the phonemes that they need to teach and how do we even begin to wrap our minds around what that might look like. So we do not need to explicitly teach every detail. As readers, like think of yourself as a reader, we do a lot of flexing right between what we expect the print to represent or say and what that word actually looks like.
Speaker 1:Words and their pronunciations actually change over time. Historically, language changes, for example, the pronunciation of the word route root or route. Route root or route often like, often often data. Some pronunciations are actually still in flux, and so there'll be regional differences between pronunciations for certain words and then other words. There's an older version of it and a more contemporary version, so language changes over time too. Any language is also evolving.
Speaker 1:So here's one thing that Sarah and I hope you take away from this that as your child begins to crack the code, you've given some explicit instruction and then natural learning or implicit learning begins to kick in. And this is when we really want to be carefully observing, through listening to our children read aloud, taking note of their mistakes that they make in their writing, especially their original writing, and we can pick up on small little skills and spelling patterns that we might need to go back and teach them or reteach them even more explicitly. This is their journey, right, this is their journey from writing to reading. It is not always linear, just like we know about teaching and learning working with our own children, teaching and learning working with our own children. So I want you to keep that in mind, that the explicit lessons you give are going to evolve into their implicit learning on their own, and you might need to circle back and do some more explicit teaching of specific skills, of specific skills.
Speaker 1:This is also a time when we can move from a strong focus on phonemic code to other important elements of language, such as suffixes and prefixes, vocabulary, grammar, greek and Latin roots, cursive writing and other really fun language things, right writing and other really fun language things right that our child discovers.
Speaker 1:So this is how the journey continues on.
Speaker 1:We move from including the letters and letter patterns in main lesson books to creating a language arts main lesson book, or then a notebook or a binder or longer pieces of writing paragraphs, reports, doing some research and that sort of thing, and throughout, depending on what our children need, are going to want to add an extra skills practice session and reading practice time into our daily rhythm and reading practice time into our daily rhythm. So oftentimes this is described as doing main lesson work on that main lesson topic for a period of time each day and also some skills practice for a short period of time each day in a skill that we've already taught but that we want to help our child practice more of. And sometimes the easiest way to wrap your mind around this is to think about if you're doing a math main lesson block, you're doing language arts skills practice. If you're doing a language arts main lesson block, you're doing math skills practice and that varies sometimes because some children need that skills practice more regularly during certain phases of their learning journey.
Speaker 2:I'll just share a little story because this illustrates so perfectly how that implicit learning starts to take off. But my little guy is in fifth grade and just really starting to pick up speed and make observations about reading and writing. And we were talking today about the air sound and there's like four or five different ways to spell that air sound. There's the hair like hair on your head word family A-I-R. There's air as in bear, like growl bear, b-e-a-r. And then there's air as in like carry I can carry this book A-R-R. And then there's hair like the rabbit. Hair is A-R-E. So we were working through two or three of these and then I said, oh, there's another one, there's A-I-R. And we hadn't practiced that one. He said I've taught myself that one. I read it in the other day. I know that. So he's like verbalizing. I taught myself that one. He already knew it before we even looked at that word family. So you know, learning to work through those things is really it's pretty cool yeah.
Speaker 1:And it is a journey, right, and it's going to be different for every single child.
Speaker 2:Yeah, the things, just their vocabulary, their interests, what they're drawn to, what they're, you know what kind of print they're exposing themselves to. You know, my little guy loves comic books, so that's what he's reading right now is comic books, and it's great. He's working through really hard stuff but, no, you know, not overwhelming himself with a thick page of text yet. So, yeah, it's different for everyone. Yeah.
Speaker 1:So, as we come to a close here, sarah has some practical, concrete tips to share with everyone here, and then we will conclude.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So the science of reading, like Jean said, it's a body of work and it's very dense. And to kind of wrap your head around it and how you might implement that in practice, that's your own journey and that takes some time and you know all the things that Jean says. Think in threes, pick one, you know, just pick one thing to try for a month. Pick one small strategy to implement into your weekly or monthly plan. That all applies here.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so the one concept, the one big takeaway from the science of reading that I think you can integrate right now into your teaching is the idea of saying your sounds as you write. And if you think about it, we do this naturally for our children. Like, if you've ever had a child come to you and say, mommy, how do I write happy birthday, you'll pick up the pencil and write it for them, but you'll say your sounds, happy birthday. To show your child as you're writing, how you're linking. So it's very natural. But to have the child do that too can be so, so helpful.
Speaker 2:And you can start small just, maybe even with handwriting or, you know, writing three or four word family words With the first grader just starting with the main lesson book and saying the sound as they write the letter in their main lesson book if they're doing crayon rows of maybe five letters on each row, but you can apply that for writing all the way up into the more advanced work writing the word photosynthesis. Break it down, say your sounds as you write to help and teach your child that connecting what they say to what they're reading will help their brain remember how to break down that word Photosynthesis, t-o-s-i-n-t-s-i-s. Those big vocabulary words have a lot. They're complicated, but you can still break them down into their smallest parts and build that really strong connection between what you're hearing and what you're writing and reading.
Speaker 1:So, I have a super quick anecdote to share here, or just a little snippet of a story that I heard. I heard this young woman who had won the national spelling bee talk about how she did it right. You know, that's the question. It's like oh, she pictures the word right in her head, she sees the word and then hears the sounds, and it is that combination. That's exactly what she's doing in order to be able to spell it correctly.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's definitely something you can use through first grade all the way to high school when you're learning higher vocabulary and teaching your child. Whatever kind of writing you're doing whether it's their original writing and they're using invented spelling, whether you're copying a letter or a word or a sentence or a paragraph saying your sounds as you write really builds that connection of the active to the passive the head, heart and hands. It just connects everything. So that's just a simple tool, simple strategy. You can start thinking about how to integrate that into whatever teaching you're doing right now. The second hot tip is, if you think about it, if you know how to spell a word, you for sure are going to know how to read it. So we can use this idea to help us remember that the active part of writing, building words, is so important to the process of reading.
Speaker 2:A lot of times, when that implicit learning kicks in, children's reading abilities can move so much faster than their writing abilities.
Speaker 2:But if we remember to incorporate as much spelling work as we can through the grades, then their writing will kind of keep pace with their reading and there won't be a huge disconnect.
Speaker 2:A lot of times we see them take off with reading and it's hard to pull them back into the writing and there can be some resistance when we ask them to do original writing. So, even though the spelling is hard to bring to life, in third, fourth, fifth grade we think of spelling as something being kind of dry and tedious. But if you get curious about words and if you kind of become like a detective, you can keep that spelling focus going to build writing skills, which is going to then improve their reading and their comprehension. It cycles around but it's sometimes so easy, especially if a child takes off in reading really quickly and is resistant with the writing. So if you just if you remind yourself if you can spell it, you can read it. And to kind of bring the focus back to the writing, the active form rather than the passive form of reading, even through the upper grades.
Speaker 1:So two things I want to add here. One is that I find it fascinating I remember when I first learned this that so often with the Waldorf approach we think we have to provide the summary and our child copies that right, but that Steiner actually said that children, he wanted children doing original writing from the very beginning, and I love that. And I think that this third tip that you're going to give is also going to help, because it's about mixing it up so that we don't get sort of stuck in this, the way we make main lesson books only doing it a one way. So I can't wait for you to share this third tip with everyone.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So the third tip is just to mix up that main lesson book writing to provide more opportunities for building that connection between the sound and the symbol. So the customary way to make a main lesson book is to have words, sentences, captions, up to paragraphs prepared for the student to copy, and this could be from your retelling of a story and the material that you're learning. But there's so many other creative ways you can do this so that you don't get kind of stuck in just that dogma of telling the story, retelling the story, drawing the picture, copying the summary. Yeah.
Speaker 2:And or doing it the same way every single time the summary, yeah, and or doing it the same way every single time. So just finding little ways to mix up your main lesson book writing, like you mentioned doing the original writing. It's amazing that this was an original indication of Steiner's and encouraging the children just to use their best skills, just to listen to the sounds they hear and do the best work they can with the skills they have and not correct them. Their original writing is a huge indicator of where they are in the process and can be such a great thing for you to observe as a teacher. You don't need to jump in and make it a lesson, but just make little notes about where they are with their original writing and if they're saying their sounds as they're writing, it's strengthening all of those oral processing skills too.
Speaker 2:So mixing up the main lesson book writing Copywork is really valuable, especially if the kids are saying their sounds as they write. But you can add original writing. You could do shared writing where the child writes a sentence. You write a sentence, the child writes a sentence, you write a sentence, and it's fine for that to go into the main lesson book. There's no rules about what goes into a main lesson book.
Speaker 2:It doesn't have to be all the child's writing. You can write with them or you can compose together. Where the child says a sentence, then you say a sentence, but you act as the scribe and then choose a piece of that writing for the child to copy. Another way to do it, which is really fun, is just to compose something together in your oral retelling. Maybe.
Speaker 2:The child says a sentence, you say a sentence, you act as a scribe and then you create a fill in the blank so you can maybe the next day come back with that same piece of writing that you composed but leave blanks for the child to fill in the words that you know they have the skills to write with the graphemes that they have learned. So then that can go in the main lesson book. And then there's the more advanced version where there's dictation, where you read a sentence to the child and they write it without looking at any kind of copy work or writing on the board or having any kind of model. And that is really challenging. So making sure that the vocabulary you're bringing in that dictation is vocabulary. The child has the skills to write, that they have mastered all the graphemes that you're asking them to write so that they can do it correctly. Yeah.
Speaker 2:So many options yeah, mixing up that main lesson book writing.
Speaker 1:Well, thank you for those tips and that's our take on learning to read. With Waldorf and the science of reading, they can go together. They go together well, really. So both Sarah and I feel like this is such an exciting development in the field of teaching reading and, as I said at the beginning, there've been so many debates in the past 50 years or more probably right about how to teach children to read in schools in particular. As homeschoolers, we benefit from these conversations and we also can individualize the learning for our child. So I hope that this talk has helped. You see that within the Waldorf movement there's been an evolution from just make main lesson books to adding skills, practice sessions, to adding explicit instruction, to observing our children and helping them on their learning journey, their learning to read journey, and also, I hope we've given you some encouragement to innovate your lessons responsibly to meet the needs of your children. In particular, with the new science of reading, we can now see how to develop more helpful and specific strategies for an explicit approach to teaching children to learn to read, teaching them their letters and their sounds, coupled with giving our kiddos a broad base of content knowledge through the main lesson blocks that we bring so that they can have a broader comprehension of what they read.
Speaker 1:So much fun to have this conversation with you, sarah. Thank you so very much. This is great, thank you. Thank you for inviting me. Yeah, all right. Well, we will share some links to some of the resources we suggested, and thank you so much for joining us. Talk to you soon. That's all for today, my friend, but here's what I want you to remember Rather than perfection, let's focus on connection. Thanks so much for listening and I'll see you on the next episode of the Art of Homeschooling podcast.