How do Waldorf schools teach reading?
The training of the powers of the intellect begins in Kindergarten with the cultivation of pictorial thinking. This foundation for reading begins by hearing stories and afterwards capturing the inner images in large colorful pictures with crayons. This enriches and encourages the rich landscape of the child’s imagination and gives him/her confidence in their own abilities of cognition. Developmentally this process becomes focused within each child as an individual. Waldorf schools have no requirement when a child must read. Instead, the love of reading is encouraged through analytic, global, phonemic awareness and whole language approaches. The child is led from the whole to the parts. They hear a story, become inwardly connected with the content and then they write a summary which becomes their “reader.” Next, books with controlled vocabulary are introduced and the children exercise their skills in small reading groups until they are able to read independently.
