Homeschool Reading Problems - When a Child Won't Learn to Read

My son wouldn’t learn how to read

What can you do if your homeschooling child won’t learn to read? I will share with you my experience in homeschooling one of my children who has such a bad case of dyslexia that reading has been an exceptional challenge for him.

This caused a lot of emotional trauma for both of us, for many years. When I homeschooled him I worried constantly because he couldn’t read. I searched for articles about how to handle reading problems in a homeschooling situation. My son had dyslexia and I knew it, but didn’t know how to get help for it. I couldn’t even get him professionally tested because we were homeschooling and our family was low income.

I’m writing this page to give other homeschoolers in the same situation a brief idea of how it turned out for us, and what might be done to help homeschooling children with reading problems.

I was trained to be a preschool teacher

My son never wanted to look at numbers or letters. From the time he was very young he absolutely hated Sesame Street with a passion. He totally rejected the educational value of that show.

He loved trains, so while trying to teach him how to count (and becoming very frustrated with his inability and unwillingness to do so) I made a large construction paper wall decoration in the shape of a steam train – each car having a number on it. He didn’t especially like that because I was using it to teach numbers. This boy was very resistant to learning numbers and letters!

Older siblings could read

…including his sister I also homeschooled.

I had an older child, also homeschooling, who loved learning to read. She enjoyed completing reading and math workbooks just for fun while getting ready to sleep each night. But none of that rubbed off on my son. He was active and talkative, and quite intelligent, but the printed letters and numbers turned him off.

These were not my only children, by the way. My oldest son learned to read at age four because I read to him daily and he just picked it up by having the same books read to him over and over. My two oldest daughters learned to read in a public school setting in their first grade classrooms. I’ve had five children – these three, and the two who were homeschooled. (They were much younger than the other three children.)

Elementary school years

…very little progress was made.

During elementary school years he would not cooperate for writing or math. He loved being read to – both picture books, and later, novels. I read as many quality children’s novels to my kids as I could – and they both loved it and looked forward to it as an important part of our day.

I took him to the nearby mental health office and asked for dyslexia testing. They had an intern test him and her results? That MAYBE he was dyslexic and that I should read to him more. Gee thanks! I didn’t know where else to turn for help.

The articles I read, written by other homeschooling moms regarding children who were slow to read, all said that I shouldn’t worry, and should instead just wait patiently. They said that at the right time my child would pick up reading skills automatically, almost overnight, on their own. I waited, and waited, and waited.

When my son was ten, a friend with more stamina than I had at that point, agreed to teach my son to read. He used the book,Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons and together they worked through the entire book. Results – my son learned to read on a first grade level. Yay!