By the time Hunter was 18 months old to 2 years, he had learned all of the letters and sounds of the alphabet. He did not learn this by order with the usual reciting or singing the 'ABCDEFG' song that other children have been learning. He knew each letter by sight and would sound them out when he saw them. He also could differentiate between complex shapes and would say their names when he saw them in his external world. Our family and close friends were excited and amazed by this - they would often express to me how smart he is.
I would have liked to have taken credit for this however, his ability to learn this information had nothing to do with any education processes we were doing together at the time. It was all him seeing and getting into things that he was interested in.
A friend had given us a Leap Frog gaming system which I noticed that he really liked how the characters looked and sounded. Unfortunately, the game system was very buggy and did not work as well as we would have liked, so I went on a search for other Leap Frog products and found the video Talking Word Factory where the story focused on some Leap Frog characters, letters, and their sounds. He enjoyed this movie so much that he asked to watch it 2 or 3 times per day. Within 2 weeks, he had learned all of his letters and sounds.
From here, I attempted to move him into some workbook activities with his new skills and found that he didn't like this. He was also introduced to other reading programs by me and other members of our family which he would do with us because he liked doing things with us though I can say that he didn't actually like the content and would have to push himself to get through a few pages and unlike the video, he never asked to do these workbook activities or reading programs.
It was the same with his learning shapes. He liked watching Nick Jr. on TV which was focused on pre-school education and presented shapes, animals, art, science, numbers, math, and information about other cultures. When I took what he was learning and applied methods of classical education with reading, worksheets, and book work, he was not as interested and eager to move on to other things like baking with me, helping his father with projects, dancing to electronic dance music and perfecting the art of woodcutting and making chainsaw sounds.
It was around this time that we started mentioning to our friends and family that we were considering homeschooling Hunter and we found they were either in complete disagreement, they had concerns, or they saw it as one of those 'on the fringe' of society kind of things. Through the years they've all come to accept that we're homeschooling though they do not trust it and often ask, "How's homeschooling going? What is he learning? Has he learned how to do this yet?", "Are you guys keeping up with everything?", "What grade is he in now?", "He needs more time with other kids," and/or "You really need to start teaching him about this."
Obviously, it would be pointless to attempt to judge our friends and family for their concerns because they are all concerns that I have had myself and I realize that they come from fear of the unknown and our beliefs about education that we have been ingrained with from the beginning of our learning process with adults - who, in-turn, as children went through the very same learning process with adults.
I would have liked to have taken credit for this however, his ability to learn this information had nothing to do with any education processes we were doing together at the time. It was all him seeing and getting into things that he was interested in.
A friend had given us a Leap Frog gaming system which I noticed that he really liked how the characters looked and sounded. Unfortunately, the game system was very buggy and did not work as well as we would have liked, so I went on a search for other Leap Frog products and found the video Talking Word Factory where the story focused on some Leap Frog characters, letters, and their sounds. He enjoyed this movie so much that he asked to watch it 2 or 3 times per day. Within 2 weeks, he had learned all of his letters and sounds.
From here, I attempted to move him into some workbook activities with his new skills and found that he didn't like this. He was also introduced to other reading programs by me and other members of our family which he would do with us because he liked doing things with us though I can say that he didn't actually like the content and would have to push himself to get through a few pages and unlike the video, he never asked to do these workbook activities or reading programs.
It was the same with his learning shapes. He liked watching Nick Jr. on TV which was focused on pre-school education and presented shapes, animals, art, science, numbers, math, and information about other cultures. When I took what he was learning and applied methods of classical education with reading, worksheets, and book work, he was not as interested and eager to move on to other things like baking with me, helping his father with projects, dancing to electronic dance music and perfecting the art of woodcutting and making chainsaw sounds.
It was around this time that we started mentioning to our friends and family that we were considering homeschooling Hunter and we found they were either in complete disagreement, they had concerns, or they saw it as one of those 'on the fringe' of society kind of things. Through the years they've all come to accept that we're homeschooling though they do not trust it and often ask, "How's homeschooling going? What is he learning? Has he learned how to do this yet?", "Are you guys keeping up with everything?", "What grade is he in now?", "He needs more time with other kids," and/or "You really need to start teaching him about this."
Obviously, it would be pointless to attempt to judge our friends and family for their concerns because they are all concerns that I have had myself and I realize that they come from fear of the unknown and our beliefs about education that we have been ingrained with from the beginning of our learning process with adults - who, in-turn, as children went through the very same learning process with adults.
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