Learning to read

At the moment, our main focus for Miya's schooling is her reading.

When we started consciously working on this in March, when Miya was 5 1/2, she was pretty much completely a non-reader.  I think I am right to say:

1. She could easily recognise and write all the letters.
2. She could copy out words written down, or write words when the letters were told to her.
3. Maybe about half the time she knew individual letter sounds (but no letter combination sounds).
4. She could recognise and write a few words, such as our names and "cat" and dog".

I decided that I would get Miya to read aloud to me each day, for about 15 to 30 minutes, starting with the simplest leveled readers and working our way up.

The leveled readers we chose first were these Reader Rabbit ones:

The first story used only eight different words -- see, I, Sam, look, at, this, book, me -- and each story after that introduced a few more words.

It wasn't long before we got into a routine of reading five stories each day, introducing one new story and dropping one old story.  We tried to read every day, but sometimes missed the occasional day.

This reader series, which we finished last month, was very successful.  Miya really enjoyed the stories (she seems to prefer stories with talking animals), which were funny and interesting, and it jumped her into reading in a way that gave her lots of confidence to continue.

On finishing that series, we have gone through our bookshelves starting with the simplest books and working our way up.  Most of the books we have aren't specifically leveled readers, though we do have quite a few of the Oxford Reading Tree Biff, Chip & Kipper readers, which are excellent.

To give an idea of where we are currently at, yesterday's new book was Put Me in the Zoo.  For the most part Miya read it all correctly, with just a few hesitations and one or two unknown words (she didn't know "violet", and I had to sound it out for her).  I expect that by tomorrow she will be reading it all very smoothly.

What I find interesting about Miya's way of learning to read is that she is still fairly slow at sounding out unknown words.  It is not something that she would immediately do, and it is only something that she is starting to do now as a consequence of me reminding her every time.

She actually seems faster at learning words from me telling them to her.  And it doesn't seem to matter whether new words are told to her directly or whether we spend a bit of time sounding them out together first.  Generally by the third time she has read a new word in a story she can remember it smoothly.

I am not sure what to think of this.  Sometime it is clear that she is just memorising the story and reciting it back to me rather than reading the words.  So, I need to keep changing the books and introducing new stories.  I worry that the way she is learning words will make it difficult for her to learn independently when she encounters new words.  But on the other hand she seems to be progressing very well, learning using her own method.

It is all very different from the way that Mulan learnt to read.

I always felt that I never specifically taught Mulan to read; it just sort of happened.  At no time did we ever work through leveled readers, and nor did I sit alongside her teaching her words.

When Mulan was 5 years 2 months, I wrote here:

I get the sense that Mulan is about 80 to 90% correct in reading most common three and four letter words.  Five letters and up are a bit too long for her—she will generally read them as some three or four letter word that has similar spelling.

By that time Mulan was regularly teaching herself new words by sounding them out independently.  With longer words she still struggled a bit, as she missed parts and so interpreted them as similar sounding shorter words.

Her self-teaching by sounding out words continued, and by the time Mulan was five and a half she was reading simple picture books aloud to two-year-old Miya.  When Mulan was six and a quarter, I wrote here that she could independently read the Frances books.  And when Mulan was six and a half I wrote here that she was independently reading Enid Blyton's The Enchanted Wood.

Two different children, and two very different ways to learn to read.

Happy Birthday Miya

Miya turned six yesterday.

So, of course she was up before the sun to head off to her first day at school.  After all, she has to walk 10 miles in the snow to get to school.  And since her Mama and I are at work all day earning enough money to pay for her exclusive private school, she has to walk there on her own.  And then after her after-school classes she had a couple of hours of homework to complete.  And then up again early this morning ...

Nah, sigh, we are spoiling her rotten.

Her school day included:

1. English: (a) She read to me for about 30 minutes, and (b) I read to her.
2. Maths and Economics: A family game of monopoly (her choice on her birthday), where she is the banker.  So far, she is beating all of us (and I've got almost nothing).
3. Music: Mama and I gave her a new, good quality, recorder for her birthday.  During the day she played her new recorder, as well as the piano.

So far she has had six birthday events, and will probably have a seventh next week!

1. In April, in China with Laolao (Mama's mama).
2. A couple of weeks ago, with Nainai and Yeye (my parents) -- long story, but they had been planning to be overseas on Miya's birthday.
3. On Friday, at the new Takapuna playground.  This was her first choice for her birthday event, but the weather looked much better for Friday than yesterday.
4. On Saturday, a friend came for a playdate.
5. On Sunday, another friend, with the same birthday, came for a playdate (he turned three yesterday).
6. Yesterday, playing board games at home with the family.
7. And next weekend, another party planned with the cousins who are sick at the moment.

Now she has just woken up, so it is time for her second day of school.  I'd better find her snowshoes.

Can't resist a book fair

Yep, I have a shopping problem.

This time, it was the Holy Trinity Church's annual book fair.  But I am proud of myself.  I was tempted, but I controlled myself.  I put back a lot of interesting books.

I only bought one box full.

At $33, this is a bit more expensive then some book fairs, but I can live with it.

Campervan holiday

Last month, in the break between the 2nd and 3rd school terms, we hired a campervan and took off up north for six days.  Friends from China hired one too, and we went together in convoy.  Here's what happened:

Tuesday 12 July
We didn't take any photos this day, so you will just have to read the words instead.

The campervan pickup was a 45 minute drive in the opposite direction of where we were heading, so it meant an early start for us drivers, leaving at 7 am to pick up the campervans then return home to pack and collect the others.  But getting ready always takes longer than expected, and by the time we had loaded up the vans it was already after midday.

Our first stop was lunch at Orewa, a beach-side town less than 30 minutes north of home.  We parked on the side of the road and tried out the van's kitchen to make the sammies -- not bad.

Mama had a clear plan of the campsites we were aiming to get to each night, and our first night, at just over 200 km from home, was Kai Iwi Lakes.  The driving went smoothly, passing through Warkworth, Wellsford and Dargaville, before evening came and I had to drive the final stretch in the dark.

Kai Iwi Lakes camp ground, on the shore of Lake Taharoa, is in two parts -- Pine Beach and Promenade Point.  The camp office, along with the more advanced facilities, is at the Pine Beach section, and we went there first to pay our $30 for the night.  But Promenade Point, on the other side of the lake, supposedly has the better views (and no electricity, kitchen or showers).

Arriving at Promenade Point in the dark, we couldn't see much, but we did manage to see our friends' van already parked near some swings.  That seemed as good a place as any to stay for the night, so, without having a clue where the lake might be, we parked and the kids tried out the swings.

Wednesday 13 July
The next morning, we were up at sunrise,

and realised how close to the lake we had parked.

After breakfast, more swing-time, and a very pleasant walk around the area, we packed up and headed off.  Our one-morning impression of Kai Iwi Lakes is that it is a very beautiful area, and it would be a great place to stay for several days to do some walks.  The camping grounds were peacefully quiet during the time we were there.

Our aim for this day was to get to Ahipara Holiday Park, 162 km away, near Kaitaia.  But we had a couple of important things to do along the way.

First up was, of course, Waipoua Forest, where Tane Mahuta, New Zealand's largest known living kauri tree, lives.  And here we are with the Lord of the Forest himself:

After lunch in our campervan parked near Tane Mahuta, we headed to Opononi, to see Opo's statue (the old stone statue has been moved and replaced by this replica):

And then it was just driving to get to our next camp site before it was too dark.  Ahipara Holiday Park, at $58, was the most expensive of the camp grounds we stayed at.  It was also the place we liked the least.  While it was close to 90 Mile Beach, the camping ground itself wasn't very scenic.  It was also crowded and cramped, and seemed to have a more young-partying-backpacker style to it.  Just call us old and boring family-types now.

That night it rained heavily, and one of the windows in the campervan leaked pretty badly, wetting our bed.  But turning the van around with the window away from the wind, and parking it on a slight slope to let the water run the other way, seemed to do the trick.

Thursday 14 July
After packing up and checking out, we drove the few minutes to 90 Mile Beach.  It was wild and windy:

Then it was off up to Cape Reinga, 130 km away, stopping for lunch at Houhora.

This was the third time time I had been to Cape Reinga.  The first was as a child, while the second time was with Mama 12 years ago when we were newly together and I was trying to show off my country.  Things are even better up there now; they have really done a good job with the paths and plants.

Mama had thought that we could spend the night at Spirits Bay, but with darkness fast approaching we decided to go to the nearer Tapotupotu Campsite.  It was a good choice.  At $18 it was the cheapest of our campsites.  It was also very peaceful.

Friday 15 July
Next morning, we were up before dawn, aiming to get back to Cape Reinga to see the sunrise.  And while we got there just in time, it was a little cloudy.

After breakfast at Cape Reinga, we headed back south, needing to drive 220 km to Waitangi.

But first, a quick stop to wander up a few mounds of sand at Te Paki,

and then down again,

for a play in the river before lunch.

On the way to Waitangi, we stopped off at Kerikeri, to see New Zealand's oldest building, Kemp House (built in 1820),

and New Zealand's oldest stone building, the Stone Store:

Then once again it was a race with the sun to get to our campsite before dark.  We got to the Falls Motel and Waterfront Campground ($56), just a short drive from the Waitangi Treaty Grounds, just in time.

It was also a short walk from a pretty decent fish and chip takeaway shop, and we had our traditional once-a-year-when-we-go-campervanning fish and chip dinner.

Saturday 16 July
The next morning we woke up to this:

We then spent most of the rest of the day at the Waitangi Treaty Grounds, including watching the cultural show and going on the guided tour of the grounds.  It was definitely well worth it.  The cultural performance was slick and funny and very entertaining (has anyone else spotted that one of the cultural performers has a traditional tongue piercing?).  And the guided tour was not so much a guided tour, but an entertaining and very informative lecture on a very important part of New Zealand's history (I was so busy listening to our guide that most of the time I was looking at the ground trying to take in what he said and not noticing where we were walking).

Afterwards, we did our own family educational tour:

Mama said she would like to have been Mrs Busby, with the grounds and views.  Mulan is being her six children:

This seems to be our new tradition at important landmarks:

And then it was time to drive 100 km to our final camp site for this holiday, Uretiti ($32).

Sunday 17 July
The next morning we played at the beach,

before driving the 120 km home.

The total cost of the holiday was $1130:
$673 for the campervan hire
$230 for the diesel, tax and tolls
$194 for the campsites
$9 for the LPG
$24 for the Waitangi Treaty Grounds entry

I think we will call it a homeschooling expense.

Welcome

Welcome to my new Homeschooling with Dad blog.

This is the blog in which I, the Dad, write about life as a full-time stay-at-home homeschooling parent.

This is my third blog site; hopefully it'll work better than the previous two.

My first was http://blog.sina.com.cn/kiwidaddy, which I started in 2009 when we first transitioned to me being the full-time stay-at-home parent.  At the time we were living in China, and the plan was to do some bilingual stuff -- me writing in English and my wife (Mama) writing in Chinese.  But the Chinese posts were few and far between, as Mama has real work to do.

Unfortunately, Sina started to get a bit troublesome.  Some of what I put there mysteriously disappeared (Chinese Big Brother didn't like something I said?).  And there were far too many pop-up ads jumping up in front of my posts (capitalist China in action).

So, in 2014 I sent my last post to Sina and switched to http://homeschoolingwithdad.blog.co.nz.  I chose Blog.com because it was one of the few English blog sites that wasn't blocked by China's Great Firewall.

But it turns out Blog.com has its own 502 and 504 Error problems.  Most of the time the site is down, with all blogs unavailable.  In the past few weeks I haven't been able to get on to it even once.  Enough is enough.

So, here we are, at http://homeschooling-with-dad.blogspot.co.nz.  I know blogspot is blocked in China, but hopefully it will at least be available around the rest of the world, and no 502s.

UPDATED 5/11/2016: I have discovered some old blog entries I posted to http://homeschoolingwithdad.blog.co.nz that I had saved on my computer.  Since the blog.co.nz site has been completely unavailable for the past several months I will repost therm here, dated at the time I wrote them.  Unfortunately, there are still many more posts that I don't have and are lost (maybe forever?).

Book review: A Wrinkle in Time

Most books I review here I am very positive about.  I guess I am just very easy to please.  But with my most recent two books I am not so impressed.  One of these is A Wrinkle in Time, by Madeleine L'Engle.  (I am still only halfway through the other book, and I plan to review it here once I am finished.)

On the dust jacket, A Wrinkle in Time is called "science fantasy".  This is an appropriate description.  On the one hand, it has elements of science fiction, because it uses some science (and speculative science) in its storyline.  But it is not solidly in the science fiction camp, because it really only hints at the science, and is not clear enough in the explanation.

On the other hand, it has elements of fantasy, because the world the characters inhabit is supernatural.  But it is not solidly in the fantasy camp either because it implies that the supernatural realm is, at least in large part, very advanced science that is beyond human understanding to the point of being mystical.

Whatever the case about that, it is clearly in the speculative fiction genre.

The story itself centres around a young teen, Meg, who ticks all the right boxes for being the protagonist of teenage fiction.  She is smart, reflective and warm-hearted, and inside her head she has got a reasonable and intelligible inner-dialogue going on.  But in the outside world she is awkward, geeky, rebellious, unpopular, ugly, sullen and troublesome.  She gets into fights and doesn't get good grades at school.

Meg lives with her mother, who is a scientist, her twin younger brothers, who are just "normal" because they are sporty and popular and only so-so smart, and her youngest brother (Charles Wallace), who is abnormally bright.  Meg's father has mysteriously gone missing while working on a secret government research project.

The story gets going when Meg, Charles Wallace and a new school-friend, Calvin, meet up with three mysterious women (Mrs Whatsit, Mrs Who and Mrs Which), who whisk them off to other planets to fight against evil and rescue the dad.

This basic plot might be workable (after all, many successful stories have weirder plots), but its execution, in my opinion, is a near complete disaster.  Each separate aspect of it is bad, to the point where nothing makes the book redeemable.

To begin with, the writing style is fairly amateurish.  While I don't pretend to be a good writer myself, and probably couldn't do any better, I believe I can tell the difference between a skilled writer and a poor writer.  Good writers, like Katherine Mansfield [my book review is lost], are able to give depth and subtlety through what is implied.  Bad writers are clumsy with words.  This was just clumsy.

Secondly, the characters are far too two-dimensional.  Meg never rises beyond the stereotype of the troubled, bright, self-doubting teen.  The dad becomes a joke when we learn that "he's a PhD several times over", and worked at Princeton and Cambridge.  And Charles Wallace is completely unbelievable as the super-bright youngster.  In some ways he reminded me of the children in Orson Scott Card's Ender's Game.  The things he said were just too ridiculously mature to have been said by someone whose age is still in single digits.  I was hoping that the end of the story would reveal something about him that would explain his super-brightness (the product of a science experiment maybe?), but nothing did.  He was just weirdly, inappropriately, and unbelievably god-like in his ability to understand everything and read other people's minds.

Thirdly, the references to science and bright ideas was disappointingly limited.  For a book that was supposed to be about super-smart people, it was disappointing that nothing particularly deep was said throughout.  I got the impression that the author actually didn't know much about these sorts of intellectual things herself, and was just bluffing her way through it all.  All too often, after brief and shallow references to stereotypically smart stuff, the author simply resorted to mysticism, with the super-smart characters saying it was beyond the other characters' abilities to understand, so they didn't need to explain it.

Fourthly, one of the central themes of the book was good versus evil, but this was done very superficially.  The children in the story were introduced to the issue when they were shown blackness in space.  In the story, they were immediately horrified to the point of near-collapse.  Similarly, when they encountered those on the side of good, they immediately recognised them as good.  Of course, this is ridiculously naive, and good and evil are complex and subtle, coming in various degrees and are sometimes difficult to recognise.

Related to this, there was very dated cold-war propaganda (the book was published in 1962).  The big, bad, alien evil turned out to be a totalitarian regime, where everyone was controlled by a giant brain and all did things in unison.  (In the book, Earth is somewhat blackened by this evil, and the fight is still in the balance.)

This all meant that as I read the book, I repeatedly felt so bugged by this low-quality nonsense that I wanted to stop.  Only two things kept me going -- firstly, that it was short, at 180 pages, and secondly that my Big Sis said there is a twist at the end that explained things better.

Since I don't recommend you read the book, I am happy to give away the ending, for what it is worth.  (Close your eyes as you read this, if you don't want to know.)

SPOILER ALERT!!!  SPOILER ALERT!!!

Finally, towards the end of the book, a version of Christianity was revealed (some Christians may not call it real Christianity).  The central theme can be summed up by this quote:

"The foolishness of God is wiser than men; and the weakness of God is stronger than men. ... God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise; and God hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things that are mighty."

The idea in the story, then, was that the wisest, strongest and smartest human characters -- the dad and Charles Wallace -- were captured by the evil brain (both mostly through ignorance, as the dad arrived there by uncontrolled accident and Charles Wallace was overly confident of his ability to control his own mind).  And even with all their superior smarts they couldn't escape.

But Meg, who was not so smart, could succeed where they had failed.  Firstly, she trusted the three mysterious women (who may have been angels) and faithfully followed their instructions by appropriately using their gifts, and secondly she showed love in the face of evil.  The evil brain couldn't handle love, and Charles Wallace was returned.

Love is good, trust is good.  And I have no problem at all with that.

But what I do have a problem with is the implied (pseudo-)intellectual anti-intellectualism that permeated the last part of the book.

(The Harry Potter series has similar themes of love and relationships, but doesn't emphasise them by trashing reason.)

I am more than happy to acknowledge that there are lots of things in the world that are super-difficult to the point of probably being beyond me.  I am also happy to acknowledge that, despite my best efforts, I am going to get lots of things wrong.  And often I am not going to know which things I am right about and which things I am wrong about.  As I see it, it is about being both humble and optimistic at the same time.

But I don't like anti-intellectual pessimism, which appears to delight in trying to trip up those who strive for excellence.  That quote above sounds pretty nasty to want to try to confound the wise and mighty.  Why not praise them and help raise them up more?  (Dare I say it, but this strikes me as exactly what Friedrich Nietzsche was critical of when he engaged in his deep psychological analyses of slave morality.)

I also don't like the way this idea was phrased in what tried to be intellectual language.  Simply put, it is not intellectual, and to me the author came across as pretty ignorant of, and uneducated about, these sorts of ideas.

To put it in a nutshell, this is one of the worst books I have read in quite a while, and I would not recommend it to anyone.  It worries me somewhat that I got this book from our local homeschooling library.  Our children can do far better than to waste their time with this sort of rubbish.

Book Review: The Hobbit

I finished reading J. R. R. Tolkien’s The Hobbit to Mulan last night.

Once again, Mulan has thoroughly enjoyed the story.  And once again, ideas from the book spilt over into everyday life.  Mulan liked to tell Miya about what was happening in the book, and every once in a while she liked to recall the names of all 13 dwarves in the story (sometimes we missed a pair!).  Miya now knows some of them too, and if we start to say “Thorin”, she will finish his name “Oakenshield”!

Since The Hobbit is about wizards, magic, mythical creatures and the fight between good and evil, and, moreover, it is told from the perspective of the title character (who is an honourable, childlike, everyday person) it is tempting to compare The Hobbit with Harry Potter.  Or, more accurately, The Hobbit could be compared with the first few Harry Potter books, while The Lord of the Rings could be compared with the later Potter books.

When it comes to excitement levels invoked in Mulan, the winner is clearly Harry Potter.  But The Hobbit is not a far distant loser; it is just that Harry Potter was extra-special in how it took over general daily conversation for a while.

With respect to the writing style, The Hobbit is very, very good, and I have no doubt that it was exactly Mulan’s level right now.  I think this was a good time to read it to Mulan.  But as I have said countless times before, the writing style of Harry Potter is brilliant, in being perfectly attuned to children.  I think Rowling is much more sensitive to her readers’ psychology and is much more child-friendly.

How about the story?  The plot of The Hobbit itself is mostly rip-roaring adventure—fighting trolls, goblins, wolves, spiders and a dragon.  There is never a dull moment.  It is simple and direct and exciting.  There is not so much everyday life stuff like with Harry.  Tolkien is a little less sensitive than Rowling, and there is much more violence and death than in the first few Harry Potter books.  If parents are worried about protecting young children from violence, than Harry Potter would be much better than The Hobbit.  But I don’t think Mulan was too bothered by it all.

And the themes?  As I say, both books are told from the perspective of the title character, who is, importantly, the moral centre of the story.  The central character of both books is, essentially, not a physical or intellectual hero who surpasses the abilities of the other characters.  In fact, both are often a lot weaker.

In this sense, these two books are very different from many other sci-fi or fantasy books, where the central character typically has exceptional abilities (such as in Dune or Ender’s Game).  Both Harry Potter and Bilbo Baggins, the hobbit, don’t take charge to dominate.  They are often much more passive to let things happen to them.  And yet, when everything else is chaotically going on around them, they maintain their solid, moral cores.  When needed, it is their moral cores which allow them to quietly come to the front and lead, at least for the time it is needed.  It is these moral characters which, I think, are supposed to set the uplifting and encouraging tones of the books.

What then, is the moral centre of The Hobbit?  The important point is that Bilbo is supposed to be the one who doesn’t lose his head in the face of power or riches.  Pretty much everyone else around him, when offered the chance of power and wealth, gets greedy.  But Bilbo, even when he could have it, and even while clearly enjoying it, doesn’t get too carried away by it all, and is just as happy to not have it.  Bilbo, then, centrally, is not at all ambitious and is not much interested in building, or leading or acquiring stuff.

Bilbo, also, is polite and hospitable, though he also likes his privacy.  His sense of justice, which he sticks to even when it might bring him great harm, is focused on honest, open exchanges and no deviousness (his acquisition of the ring is the one big exception to this).  He is not at all prejudiced against other peoples or social groups, and is happy to make friends with anyone who doesn’t offend this basic honesty and decency.

But along with this, Bilbo still likes his simple creature comforts, of a bed and good (and frequent) meals.  He likes singing and dancing, and has a taste for poetry and books.

These three aspects—lack of ambition, politeness, and enjoyment of simple creature comforts—are the values which Tolkien is clearly advocating in the story.

But just as importantly, while Bilbo is loyal to his friends and acquaintances, he seems not much interested in social justice (unlike Harry Potter).  He stands by his principles when he encounters stuff in his everyday life, but nowhere does it seem that he goes very far out of his way to get involved with others in need.  He is content to keep himself to himself in his comfortable life.  It also appears that Bilbo doesn’t do much to earn a living, and he lives in the home that his father built.  He appears to have mostly inherited his simple, comfortable life, rather than earned it.  Bilbo, then, represents the somewhat self-satisfied, socially unaware and unmotivated middle classes, who might have one big overseas adventure and then return home again.

Throughout Bilbo’s one-year journey in the story, he maintains this central moral core.  The main change in Bilbo’s character, from beginning to end, is that he begins to know himself more.  That is, rather than remaining naively simple, simplicity shows out as a conscious choice of character.  He also grows in self-confidence from his initial flustering and complaining to his later calmer acceptance of things.

In many ways, then, The Hobbit is a very good morality story for children.  Towards the end, when the dwarves, men and elves were lining up to fight each other over the gold in the mountain, Mulan (as I sure was intended by Tolkien) very rightly pointed out, in a very determined voice, that they should not be going to war over the gold.  Similarly, her sense of justice was clearly with Bilbo when he risked great personal harm in his attempt to broker peace between the sides.  And I am sure that she agreed with him about enjoying home and a comfortable life.

But because Bilbo is, basically, a lazy, self-absorbed, elitist lump when it comes to wider social issues, I think Harry Potter is far superior as a moral teacher for children.

The Hobbit is an awesome book, and essential reading for all children.  But it is still nowhere near as good as Harry Potter.

---

Note: when Mama read this she said that Bilbo sounds exactly like me.  I immediately protested, and said it was more like her.  I’m not sure who is right.  At the very least, I like to think that I am more socially aware!  But, like Bilbo, I suppose I do have a very British outlook on life, and similarly, my almost-ten-years adventuring in China has clarified to me my central moral core.  Now, like him, I am returning home.