Recovering from Special Education

A mom writes: “It’s hard to face our friends and family when they hear about our homeschooling and say, ‘But look at your children, they don’t even read yet.’ They even sometimes ask our children if they can read. The children look down with long faces and reply, ‘No, I can’t.’ It really hurts me when I see them feel ashamed of themselves.”

In reply, John Holt wrote: “Above all, don’t let the boys feel ashamed of themselves … Reading is a useful skill as well as a source of much information and pleasure, and not being able to do it can be a nuisance. But it is not a crime. Reading has nothing to do with intelligence or competence, and I have heard of quite a few highly successful and even wealthy people in this country who could not read at all. There is no reason for shame. Make sure the boys understand that.

“As I say, not being able to read is an inconvenience and a nuisance, like having a broken leg or being sick. But also, once people get over the idea that reading is terribly difficult or that they are too stupid to do it, neither of which is true, and once they decide that for their own reasons they really want to read, they can do it in a very short time, often only a few months or less—I myself personally saw adult illiterates in their 40s and 50s learning the essential skills of reading in only a few weeks.”