Learning as we go…

My kids are reading informational books about animals, their favorite topic! Last few library trips they have been reading in the car as we drive home......aloud!!! and sharing!!! happy to be reading and enjoying what they are finding out about the animals!! Yeehaw! I do not know how they are learning to read, though, as far as how they are actually learning...to....read. But they are....one ever so slowly and the other ever so seemingly fast.

Ok. How people learn to read, when and if one is truly dyslexic and/or has a true "learning disability" will be a "need to know and understand" of mine. I was beginning to work toward a Master's Degree in Reading before children. I have a few classes under my belt, but they explained little of why children do not learn to read. They only explained how to teach: phonetically or whole language. I have for a while had a hankering to understand the learning to read process, it seems.

I also worked with adults in a literacy program for a year. I know that there are some people who for whatever reason truly have trouble decoding and making words stick in their minds, in whole or in part. I worked with one man like this. He knew enough words to get by. He had successfully run his own painting business without the ability to read every word he came into contact with as he ran his business and lived his life. He adapted to the world, but life might have been easier for him if he could learn to read better. He seemingly could not. Then I ask, are we all 100% equipped to face "life as we know it" and does society make it harder than it has to be for the "non-reader?? Do we stunt what could be a natural process (out of time and sync with the expected) and create "non-readers"?? Is there a biological condition that hinders the "learn to read" process, that keeps some people from becoming "proficient" readers; and if this is the case, do we harm those children by pushing and demanding what they cannot accomplish?

What do you think?