Teaching Reading in the Homeschool

A curriculum-free, effective method from 1800

Here is another excerpt from National Education in The United States of America by Du Pont de Nemours in which he details an effective method for teaching reading and writing to young children, a method he himself used successfully with his own two sons.

To begin with, children should be spared the labor of learning to read, by teaching them to read by writing…

To begin the instruction of a child by teaching him to read is to forget that he prefers the use of his fingers to that of his brain; or rather that he uses his brain best by means of his fingers. He has an urgent desire to move, to act, to accomplish…His hand, his feet, his eyes, his own power of observation, have already furnished him with many true ideas…It is difficult for him, in consequence, to become merely a patient listener. The necessary inactivity is unnatural to his body, which nature is urging to fuller development…When he listens passively, he is controlled and taught by others; when he acts, he teaches himself. In the latter case he is freer, happier, and more alert…

To read is to remain in one place; to write may be accomplished in three or four ways—on the sand, with a stick; on a wall, with charcoal; on a board or a slate with chalk; on paper with a pencil, and at last, with pen and ink. There is less fatigue, more self-satisfaction; the variety of methods encourages more practice; the instruction is more firmly impressed and without ennui.

The art of writing, if taught at the beginning with a very little knowledge of reading, is much easier than that of reading taught separately. It is so easy to teach them together that all children might know them before leaving home, and arrive at school with these two branches of study already begun.

When a child has been shown how to make an A, he knows that it is A; and he can read it.

If you next show him how to make a P, and if you place the P before the A, he has written PA. Do it again and he will realize he has written PAPA. Any child who in two little games has learned to write his father’s name is delighted. He runs, frantic with joy, to show his mother and writes PAPA, PAPA, more often than he is asked to. Another little game teaches him another letter; he can write MAMA, and his joy is even greater. He is not unwilling to alternate the letters; on the contrary it amuses him. It is also either PAPA or MAMA; either pleases him; and each time that he shows his accomplishment, it is with new delight…

Cat, dog…and other words of the same kind will give him no greater trouble. Those are the things he knows. He knows what he is doing and realizes that it may be useful. He has begun with the ideas that are most familiar to him and with the shortest words; the work on the game never seems long. The drawing of a little sketch may help him, may give him another kind of pleasure and instruction, and interest him more in writing, which thus becomes so much less difficult…Drawing and writing taught together will teach him a little natural history, will encourage his taste, will develop his observation.

He will beg you to teach him to write a word, often one of his own choosing. He will practice in your absence. It is unnecessary to teach him any letter until he needs to use it in a word. But by giving him his own time and only helping him to learn, all the letters, all the syllables, will in time be studied; and this will have been done by his own desire and initiative.

When he has exhausted the words he has thought of for himself…you will add the article the; the pronoun this…A little later will come a few adjectives and with them a clear idea of things which may be draw, and qualities which can only be explained…The necessity…of joining...qualities to the name of the possessor, will involve the use of the word is from the verb to be; and he will enjoy writing the sentences he has composed…The desire to vary sentences to the present, past, future, and conditional will teach him, by practice, the use of conjugation…Adverbs, prepositions, conjunctions will find their places in the sentences he will suggest to you. Interjections are exclamations, the first words he knew…He will wish to know how to write everything he thinks and says…

All that he writes he will write correctly, because you will supply, or will have supplied, the letters and punctuation appropriate to his thought…

The success of this arrangement of study would be quite assured in a home education supervised by an educated father; and it would be better that it should be accomplished in the family circle.

Du Pont’s method, combined with the letter sounds (phonics), is very similar to the most effective method for teaching children with dyslexia to read. This method works well for any child. Once you understand the principles, you don’t need glossy textbooks, glitzy educational computer games, or expensive phonics programs. With paper and pencil (or other writing implements) and a Bible, you can teach your child to read the way it has been done for centuries, perhaps millennia. The question is, will you STEP OUT?