I well remember the moment it dawned on me that since I was homeschooling, it was up to me to teach my child how to read.

I'll be honest, there was a moment or two of panic. I had never taught anyone to read before.

Nor did I remember how I was taught to read. How was I going to do this?

But happily, it turned out to be easier and more enjoyable than I had

anticipated, because it followed a natural progression. Let me walk you through how the Charlotte

Mason method teaches reading step by step. Welcome to the Simply Charlotte Mason podcast.

I'm Sonia Schaefer.

One of the ways that we interact with language is through reading.

It's an important skill that will set our children up for a lifetime of learning.

And for that reason, it's easy to feel pressured. But let me encourage

you right from the start that your child's education does not depend wholly upon her learning

to read. As we talked about in the episode on Good Books, with the Charlotte Mason approach,

your child can learn and grow in all of the school subjects

even before she is reading on her own. Because you, the teacher, read her school books

aloud to her until she is ready to read them for herself, whatever age that may be.

So put your mind at ease. There's no pressure

to teach your child to read now. In fact, it's vitally important not to push your child in this

skill. Each person should be given the respect and encouragement to progress at her own pace when it comes to learning

how to read. If we push, we are in danger of creating two negative soundtracks in that

child's mind. The first is, I'm not good at this. Our children can tell when they're not

meeting our expectations, no matter

how much we try to hide it. And the second soundtrack is, I don't like this. It's never pleasant

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