Embracing Learning Freedom for My Child

I shouldn’t have listened to them. To the “homeschool experts” who said your child should never read an abridged version of a classic. I really thought I had gotten rid of all of them for that reason. . . Yesterday, the kid who has listened to the full-length Secret Garden audiobook several times, picked up on the edited version of the same book in her room. Gasp! She’s been reading it most of the day and is almost finished. . . The longer I homeschool, the easier it is for me to stop listening to the experts because I can see better what has worked for us. Not them. Us. . . She learned to read at her own pace by first devouring audiobooks to build her vocab and love of reading. I didn’t push her with flash cards or even curriculum. She did it when she was good and ready. . . She loves reading more and more and still listens to audiobooks for hours a day. If I had gotten rid of the abridged version of The Secret Garden, it would have been a bit too hard, she would have become frustrated, and she would have given up on reading one of her favorite stories on her own. . . Instead , she built confidence and challenged herself just a tad bit more. She’s not a schedule but Katie. She’s a bit of a rebel like her momma.