>>Could you please give me your take on this? Our son is barely reading in Hebrew, after a long journey. He is 8 years old. I see lots of audio books available in English but not in Hebrew. I am trying to teach him to read Hebrew first, as we live here (Avivah- in Israel). But I feel like he is not getting enough reading for the other reasons we have our children read. I mean, the skill of reading is one thing, but the mind opening, exploration and thinking challenges that one encounters in a good book are not there. I feel he’s missing out. So, I am perplexed- to jump a border and give him audio books in English, before or without teaching him to read English? I am not on a proficient level to read him the Hebrew books his siblings were reading at his age and I do not know where I would find the time for it anyway. As of now, when we learn in the mornings most of the texts are in Hebrew and we get through it, but after his siblings school hours when I read to them it’s in English. Do you see this gap I am concerned about?<<

This question makes me think how easy it is even as homeschoolers to get trapped in a linear way of thinking regarding learning that is typical in schools but not reflective of natural learning at all!

Listening to audio books isn’t about reading skills but about listening skills, expanding vocabulary, exploring new ideas and concepts, developing concentration abilities…and about having fun while doing all of that! Listening to books being read aloud isn’t going to detract from anything else and will only enhance his learning and enjoyment of a language. This is even more important when a child is struggling with reading – imagine if anything fun we wanted to do was linked to us performing in our weakest area up to someone else’s predetermined standard. For example, what if your husband said to you, “We won’t take a walk together until you’ve planned all the meals for the rest of the month.” What’s the connection?! It certainly wouldn’t be motivating and your relationship would be limited because of these criteria!

We speak to babies even though they don’t know how to read, right? It’s the same thing with older kids! There are communication and relationship benefits for the mother and child when reading together, or for a child to independently listen to recorded books. These are so important that I would cut out the time spent on technical studies in the morning to create time to read together if there’s no other time in the day.

For the record, I don’t consider eight especially late to be reading. I think if we changed our expectations for when kids needed to learn to read and gave them some more time to develop readiness, taking into account different learning styles and other factors, we’d see the rate of supposed learning disabilities drop dramatically. My dd17 is an auditory learner who didn’t teach herself to read until eight. (Long term blog readers know that I don’t teach reading but wait for readiness and help the kids with sounds when they ask; my first seven kids have learned to read English on their own in this way and our next auditory learner was also on the late side.) When she was in prekindergarten her teacher was already telling me she wasn’t picking up the letters fast enough and that I needed to do homework every night so she wouldn’t be behind when she got to kindergarten. That was before we began homeschooling but I rolled my eyes at that even then. I’ve often thought how critical homeschooling was since as a late reader in school she would have gotten the message early on that she wasn’t so bright or even had learning disabilities.

In fact, she had nothing of the sort and just needed a little more time. She’s the same daughter who just got the highest score on her aptitude testing for a mathematical field of all the girls testing at that seminary, and as a new immigrant here less than two years had scores on her Israeli high school matriculation exams to rival the top students in her class, while simultaneously studying for the tests of the grade she was in and the grade she skipped. (Her high school doesn’t have experience with new immigrants and these scores were in spite of the fact she didn’t get the leniencies in testing that she was entitled to.) The girls in her class couldn’t understand how she could do so well and a couple told her she was ‘lucky she was so smart’. More like, she was lucky not to spend her formative school years feeling dumb. I highly doubt she would be the student she is now if her identity early on had been of an academically slow learner.

Back to the question. No, I don’t see any gap or reason for concern. Any kind of books that your child hears read aloud, either in English or Hebrew, will benefit him regardless of what language he reads or how well he reads it. If your child does have a learning disability, I think it’s really important that you find ways for learning to be fun. Limit the frontal learning as much as possible and look for different ways to help him develop thinking skills, gather information, etc. Reading is an important part of learning but by no means the only way. Your son is blessed that he has a mother who cares so much about helping him overcome his weaknesses and at the same time, has the flexibility and desire to find ways for him to be successful outside of mainstream definitions of educational success.

If any of my readers are aware of audiobooks or stories in Hebrew, phone lines with recorded stories, etc, please share those here! This is particularly helpful for English speakers in Israel who want their children to enhance their language comprehension, along with those who are studying Hebrew outside of Israel. Thanks!

Avivah