Learning to Read

The theme of next Monday's walk-and-talk is a topic that highlights the success of the Sudbury model: Learning to read. Sudbury-model kids find reading to be no more challenging than many other requirements of growing up.

Reading is more than just decoding. It's also finding meaning in the words, having a relationship with the content. This is so much easier when reading begins with a child's interest - the meaning is important to them, and they already have a relationship with the content. Sudbury-model schools find that decoding an alphabet is easy compared with what kids have already accomplished: Decoding a language when they learned to talk.

Centipedes don't need to be taught how to walk. If it were attempted, you can imagine the results. Centipedes walk just fine on their own. Sudbury-model schools find the same thing to be true for kids learning to read. Kids start reading when they discover its use, when the meaning of the words is already embedded in their life.

Learning to read highlights the success of the Sudbury model.