What is The Family Schools stance on reading?
Often we as a society confuse the acquisition of skills with learning. Reading is a skill set that is useful for pursuing knowledge and information. Reading is unfortunately often taught as a subject, as an end in itself. At the Family School we see reading not as the thing to learn, but as a means to learning and knowledge acquisition. Much research has been done regarding early childhood learning and skills acquisition, especially with regard to early reading. Several educational theorists have looked at the differences in the approach to teaching reading in the various areas of the world. In the French-speaking areas of Switzerland, where early reading skills are taught to preschoolers, there is a large percentage of children who later are assessed as poor readers, whereas in the German-speaking areas of the country, children do not begin formal reading instruction until age seven and very few children experience reading difficulties later. Teaching and Learning in Early Childhood i
