I believe that you can learn almost anything through books. It’s hard to think of a subject where nobody has written a book about yet. By reading a good book you can take a look inside someone’s mind and heart. There’re as many different books as there’re different people; as many books as opinions. I grew up in a family where everyone loved books so I saw a lot of reading and was read to a lot as well. This way I naturally developed a love for reading. When I entered high school I HAD to read books and it almost killed my love for reading. Suddenly books weren’t my intimate friends anymore but instead they seemed part of the teacher-school conspiracy. I have always found that the right book will come into my life at the exact right time, but in high school I was forced to read books that someone else had picked out; it took the whole fun out of reading. Luckily my love for books survived so I can pass it on to my children now. For Rutger books have always been especially important. Since he has some physical challenges, and learned to walk on a later age than usual, books were his favourite way to explore the world and they still are.

Story Teller

Because they read so much my children often experience that there are many different opinions about a subject. I think that’s wonderful because they don’t automatically assume that things are a certain way, like they would when they would learn from one teacher. Instead they learn to think for themselves, take all the information they’ve gathered in account, and then form their own opinion. We visit our local library at least twice a week and the boys usually come in with long wish lists with books, software and educational video’s they want to check out. Here, in the USA, the library is an unschoolers paradise; everything’s for free and you can check out as many things as you like. Every time we come home with big bags full of books and other educational material. In the winter we sit down to read in front of the fire and drink hot cocoa, while in the summer we love to read in the shade of a big tree with some cool lemonade. The older children often read by themselves but they also enjoy reading to the younger ones, as do I. The best way to teach your children how to read is simply by reading to them as often as you can. When they’re ready to read they’ll just take of on their own. Children can be ready to read at different ages. My oldest son, Rutger, was reading by himself at age 5 because books were his main interest. My second son, Stijn, didn’t read until he was 8 but once he decided he wanted to learn to read he learned real fast. Some children will read as early as 4 while others might not be interested until they’re 12. As long as your child doesn’t read by himself you’ll help him most by reading to him and not pressuring him to start reading on his own. That way you can give your child a lifelong love for reading and that’s way better, in my opinion, than teaching them to read at a certain age and killing their love for reading in the process.