Mama-to-many wrote:
Most AMAZINGLY (to us anyway), one of our sons could not read when we left......we spent six months in Asia with no access to English written materials other than our Bible and journals - not even English script around us of course - and when we got to England and bought some kids books secondhand, he could read them. I kid you not. He went from not reading at all to devouring novels with ABSOLUTELY no practice whatsoever. I still haven't figured that one out from an educational point of view, though I continue to rejoice in it and hope it will help allay some of your fears. If it can happen for reading, it can happen for maths and science and geography and history and poetry and music and art appreciation and international relations and sociology....you get my drift.
I agree. That's been our experience too.
My son has always been very active - too active sometimes. He loved listening to stories, but could never find the time to bother sitting down to read himself. In grade 1 he tested fairly low below grade level. My mom and I (John was still in Malaysia at the time) made sure we had Davy read to us every night and all that. We worked with him a bit, but never made a huge deal about it.
By grade 2, Davy was reading at grade level, but barely. He still struggled a bit and didn't really enjoy it.
then in grade 3 we pulled the kids out of school and headed out on our bikes. Every night we read to the boys in the tent before we went to sleep - they loved it and so did John and I. It was our special magic. But we were still concerned about Davy's reading because well... we weren't having him read all that much since we were so overwhelmed with all the travel stuff.
About 3 months into the trip we were stuck in the tend for a whole day due to rain. A WHOLE day! With two 8-year-olds! We happend to be reading Where the Red Fern Grows (about 4th grade reading level) at the time. I read a chapter, then another one, and another. When I couldn't read any more I handed the book to John and he read for a while. Then I read. Finally we handed the book to Daryl, who read a chapter or two. Then me, then John, then Daryl... We skipped Davy because we figured there was no way he could read it - he was struggling at the 2nd grade level.
I'm still not sure why, but John handed the book to Davy and asked him to read a chapter. He read it - FLAWLESSLY!!!!
My theory is this: when we are in stimulating, exciting environments our brains actually grow dendrites - physical connections between brain cells. It's these dendrites that allow us to make connections between one thing and another. The more dendrites we have, the "smarter" we are and the more easily we can learn new things by connecting them with things we already know. But growing those dendrites is the hard part.
When you are traveling and are in challenging, stimulating environments ALL the time, your brain is constantly growing those dendrites. It is permanently in "learn mode", which makes all learning easier.
We have seen it first hand with our boys - they just learn. Even when we think they are just playing. I wrote an article for Life Learning Magazine about that -
http://familyonbikes.org/press/learning_on_bikes.pdf
