Modulo's Fireside Chat with Rachel Tidd (Founder of Wild Learning)

Hi, I'm Manisha, the founder of Modulo. We provide community resources and expert support for homeschooling families. And I'm so excited to be here in person with my friend and incredible education entrepreneur Rachel Tidd, who is the founder of Wild Learning with Wild Math and Wild Reading. And we're going to talk to her today about her curriculum. It's so great to have you here, Rachel.

It's so great to be here with you in person, Manisha.

Yay. We are actually here together in Ithaca, New York. Funny story. I. During the pandemic, I reviewed lots of comments from families in secular homeschooling groups trying to find the best math and the best reading. And I was really looking for a strong nature based curriculum. And Rachel's program kept coming up over and over and over again. And so I reached out to her because I really wanted to talk to her about the program and see if there are ways we could collaborate. And it turns out she lives in Ithaca, New York, where my mom lives. And so I'm here visiting for the holidays and we met in person and have now become amazing friends.

I know. And now we're here, and so we thought we'd do this together.

It's so great. So great.

Virtually.

So I'd love to just dive right in. Let's start with Wild Reading. Yeah. You could maybe tell people a little bit about what you were doing before you started Wild Reading, what inspired you to start the program and what it is.

All right, so, yes. So Wild Reading is Wild Learning's reading curriculum. As some of you might know, I started by writing Wild Math and soon wanted to expand on Wild Reading and do reading outside as well. I started Wild Learning in general because of my own two children. I kind of wrote it. It kind of came out of what I was doing with them and their needs. My youngest also has learning disabilities, and so he did much better in the outdoor environment, especially in forest preschool. And we wanted to continue that as we were homeschooling. And I needed something that would teach academic skills outside because I still. I. They need to learn to read. They need skills and math. And so that's how it started. And so I started with Wild Reading one. And we also have W. I was reading too, which kind of goes up to about a second grade level.

Wow. So I actually wasn't. I wasn't aware that you started Wild Math before Wild Reading. Yeah. That is so interesting. And so at the time, had you already started homeschooling or were you. I know that you were A teacher in. So you were a teacher, and were your kids in school? Did you take them out of school and homeschool? What was the. What was that?

So I used to be a special ed teacher, primarily elementary, special edition. And I once. I had my oldest, who's now almost 13. I stayed home with him, and then I had another kid. And we have kind of been homeschooling from the beginning. It wasn't originally our intention. It was just kind of how it happened. And what inspired you to homeschool? Well, a lot of reasons. My kids are really different and for different reasons, so I'm sure a lot of you can relate. My kids are three years apart. My oldest, learning is really easy. He's always been super advanced. He just. We had him evaluated as a child, and he was gifted. And they actually told me, which is not recommended. You should not say this to people when you're working in a school, not to send him to kindergarten because it was not going to be challenging enough for him. And so we kind of were forced. So I wasn't going to go back to work.

Right.

We were kind of forced. We were like, well, this. If this isn't a good fit, what are we going to do? So we kept him home. Then my youngest came along, and he had a lot of sensory issues. Both of my kids went to Forest Preschool and thrived there for completely different reasons. And my youngest just lucked out that we were already homeschooling. And since he was having a lot of difficulties, I knew, like, he was perfect outside Forest Preschool when he had him evaluated for sensory and learning differences, the teachers were shocked that he was having any trouble at all at home because they didn't see it outside. And so that was really my light bulb moment. And, like, I wanted to continue supporting his needs, that I needed to integrate the outdoor element, because for his preschool doesn't last for forever. And so he lucked out that we were already homeschooling, and I was able to do that. So I just started kind of experimenting and I started with math, and I don't even know why. It just seemed, like, easiest to do outside.

And.

Yeah, so that's kind of how we started homeschooling and why so for completely, totally different reasons. Right. Like, I didn't want to put this kid that thrived in the outside in a school where they only had 20 minutes of recess. Like, that just wasn't going to work for him. But he lucked out because we were already homeschooling, so.

Wow. And I mean, how does it, how does it work to teach math outside? Can you tell us a little bit about the tools you use?

And okay, so with math, I kind of just took what's already in any math curriculum. I looked at a whole bunch and took the major skills. And then I kind of just. You figure out how to use nature or natural items or just how to do those in each individual skill outside. So for example, we teach place value, and instead of using like the special place value plastic blocks, we make place value bundles of 10 sticks. So we have place value sticks and tens and ones and. Or collecting 100 items. Or if we're doing fractions, we're doing it with like mud pies or mud cakes and we're dividing the fractions. And even all the way up to fifth grade, I can show how to multiply and divide fractions with mud pies. And that kind of bridges over to the more concrete of like writing how to, like the algorithm of like how to multiply fractions and things. So it's, it's really, it works really well. And that's kind of how I started with that. Just because it seemed like you could use plastic counters or you could use acorns, you know, or rocks or whatever. Does that make sense?

Yeah, absolutely. What first got you interested in nature based curriculum? Is it something you studied at school?

School wasn't something I studied in school because I was trained as just a, you know, typical formal educator teacher. But seeing my kids, two very different kids, thrive in that outdoor environment just kind of inspired me to try to figure out how I could incorporate that in my homeschool. And then it just kind of grew. I had a friend that kind of told me to like start writing it down and I was like, oh no. And then I finally did, and I'm so thankful to her. But, you know, it's just kind of morphed and grown. I started with just the grades that my kids were doing at that time. It was kindergarten and in third grade. And then, you know, people asked for more levels and as they grew I just kept writing more. And so I, um. And that's how wild reading came too, because we were struggling with reading. My son has dyslexia. And I just knew that this had worked so well with math and I knew others would be interested in doing reading outside as well. So I just took everything that I knew and learned and what I liked about certain approaches. Because I'm kind of a mixer. I like to mix different things and so I take the best set of things and Put them together. And so it's kind of just writing down what I was doing.

It's such an incredible story because as I understand, you didn't have any background in business or anything like that. You just really filled this need for a high quality math program. And a math program that was outdoors.

Yes.

Nothing else.

Like there's nothing. Everything was very science based. Right. And it still kind of is. So there's a lot of science and social studies outside or nature journaling, which are all great. But to do those things well, especially as our kids get older, they need certain skills. You need to know how to add, subtract, multiply, divide, and there's no reason we can't do them outside.

So, yeah, I mean, so I'm just putting myself in the shoes of a parent who maybe wants their child to have more outdoor learning, but is not very nature y themselves or, you know, never went to Girl Scouts or Boy Scouts. Can that kind of parent use your curriculum as a way to connect more with nature? Is it hard for them to use?

No, I think anyone can do it. And you don't have to dive in like 100% if you're not ready or you don't want to. It is a standalone curriculum, so it does cover all of the typical skills, K through 5, but you can use it piecemeal. So maybe you are working on addition and you want to go outside on Fridays. People call it like forest Fridays. And do some of your math outside that day because you're going to spend most of your day out outside. Or maybe you just want something to do at the park this afternoon. You can dip in and out of it as much as you want. You can use it alongside a traditional curriculum and just match up the units. Math is really good for that because everybody learns to add and subtract. Everyone's learning to multiply. You just kind of match those up and, you know, they're pretty consistent grade wise. So you just had to find that skill that you want to work on and then there's, you know, a list of activities that you could do to work on that skill without worksheets. That's always a big one for me.

That's wonderful. I love how you've made it just so easy for any parent to pick up and follow the directions. That's a really important piece of all of this.

And I will say that you don't need. You don't need like a super natural environment to do it. Like, a lot of people are like, you know, look at what I'm doing and where I live and I don't. They might say I live in the desert or I live in the city and it doesn't really matter. You can just use whatever you have. It can be rocks if you don't even. There was a bunch of people during the California wildfires that couldn't go outside. It was dangerous to go outside. And so they sent me pictures of what they were doing in a hotel room. Like with like Cheerios, you can do the same activities. I just always say, just think about the math concept and not worry about so much matching what exactly I'm doing. You know, it can be rocks in the playground. You can bring your own things to the playground. Chalk can be used almost anywhere. Especially urban environments are great for chalk. So there's always something that you can do that's fantastic.

And I just feel like this connection to the natural world is so important for any child or any person. I mean, we as educators talk a lot about attachment theory and how building connections with your parent is really important for laying a foundation for social skills later on and a sense of security. And children can build that same kind of connection with nature and their environment.

Yeah. And you know, just like using and being in nature kind of builds that appreciation for nature. And down the line those we're building kids that will care about the environment. And so I feel like, you know, the more we're outside and connecting what we're learning to the outdoors in real life is like, you know, as opposed to like a workbook and an abstract concept, we're building those, those leaders in the future that are going to understand those things and care about those things.

So yes, for sure. And as a parent also, it's a way to open that door again if you maybe have closed it.

So yeah, I think people, once they get in, it seems hard, maybe a little more work in the beginning, but I think once you get used to it, like it's just, it goes so much smoother than trying to get your kid to do another worksheet or, you know, like it's much easier to get them outside and see maybe something they're interested in and kind of roll with that or have a specific idea in mind that you want to do that day as opposed to like just the boring old routine of doing like 20 problems, which isn't actually all that effective.

Yeah. Do you have you found in, I mean now you have thousands of people who are using wild learning that there are certain kinds of kids who really thrive in having a nature based curriculum. I Mean, I imagine it's great for any kid, but ones who, I mean, the parents have just tried every other kind of curriculum and this is the only thing that has worked and their child has responded to.

Yes, totally. You know, kids that have any learning challenges because of its lack of worksheets, it doesn't mean you can't use worksheets if you want to, you certainly can. But everything is hands on. Everything is very concrete. Everything starts with doing something. It's, you know, you're using the materials to do something. Kids who need that, kids that like to move, kids that like sensory input, are all kids that are great for this kind of learning. I also integrate a lot of my special ed experience. And so that can be a reason too, that it works for that for kids who have more special needs, but it can also be good for kids that are advanced. You know, you can move them along as fast as you can because it's, it's not like a lot of repetition, of doing a lot of problems if they've already caught on. Like, there's no, like, I have to finish this whole workbook to move on to the next level.

They can move on at their own pace.

Right. You can move them along. And I always tell people to make the curriculum work for you. Any curriculum, not just my curriculum, by moving kid ahead if you need to, by skipping things if you need to. And at the same time, maybe you're repeating or you're slowing down for some kids. So it really depends on the child in front of you and your child and what you want to do. But you got to really focus on who you're teaching and not just what, what I wrote down or what someone else wrote down. Because we're kind of, kind of just writing what we think will happen, but not necessarily what needs to happen for your child. Because you know your child the best.

Yes, absolutely. You do. And don't forget it. You're always trying to drive that point home. Families have just such incredible intuition when it comes to their own children, which is why they make really incredible guides to learning. I, you know, I've always loved children and I feel like I have a very easy, natural connection with kids, but I never would have an easier connection with someone else's kid than they, than they do. So, yes, it's really important to remember that point, and that's a benefit of.

Homeschooling, is that you can tailor it completely. That's why many of us homeschool. Right. Like, I can tailor it to my two very different kids. While, you know, making. Helping them learn at their own pace so that they're both successful even though they're very different.

Yeah. And you know your child best. And I have lots of experience in education. Rachel is a special education teacher. But you, I mean, as teachers, we know parents really do have that intuition to support their children. So digging in a little bit deeper to special needs, I mean, I have seen wild learning work really well with children who have adhd. It's just if you have difficulty concentrating, a physical, nature based curriculum. Curriculum is amazing. Also, children who have been diagnosed as gifted who learn more quickly. I'm curious about dyscalculia. Am I pronouncing that dyscalculia? Dyscalculia, which is a maybe you can probably explain it better than I, which is a common math related learning difference. Can you tell parents who maybe have children with this learning difference how they can use wild learning?

Yeah, I just thought in particular wild math is really good for dyscalculia. Kids with dyscalculia have a lot of problems with like numeracy and understanding time and just kind of math in general. Things that help them are hands on activities, which is what wild math is. Right. Concrete, showing things in real life, connecting them to real life. And they often need a ton of repetition. And so you can do these activities in a lot of different ways with different materials and different settings. And since there are no worksheets, while math really encourages the use of games for learning math facts and things. So that can be really helpful because doing worksheets just isn't super effective for anyone really. And I think that it makes it more fun and more engaging and so they're more willing to do it. And, and you can use those manipulatives and hands on activities to kind of like scaffold their learning and make sure that they're feeling successful along the way without jumping ahead too fast so that they feel supported all the way.

Yes, any child will benefit from moving forward at their own pace. And also one of the great things about your program is that it's multimodal, meaning that there's visual, there's hands on, there's audio components, there's all these different ways of seeing the problem. And your child can start naturally gravitating towards the way that works best for them. Just because we're both entrepreneurs. I mean, I found that when I'm marketing, it's always good to have multiple approaches. We're making a podcast for people who like to listen. We're making a YouTube video, you know, we have a newsletter, all the. Everyone is learning in a different way. And if you really want to educate someone and give them a deep understanding of a concept, it's good to come at a couple different angles and to help both deepen the knowledge and also help people really tune in to the frequency that works best for them, in a sense. So I just, I love this, this program so much. It's so great and so fun to do with your child as well. And I guess, you know, because we're talking about this topic of parents knowing their child best and the fun of homeschooling. And I do want to emphasize you do not have to be homeschooling to use wild math and wild reading. And what's great is that they're core subjects. So you can use this to supplement what your child is doing in school. You can use it as a standalone curriculum. And math and reading are just real building blocks. If a child knows how to read, they can read anything. They can learn about any topic. Once they learn math, they can build, they understand geometry, they can teach themselves differential equations, you know, so I mean, we just have to address this question, which I get so, so much. And I don't know if it's a question or more of a, a myth or an objection, but this phrase, I can't teach my child math because I'm not a math person.

It's true. Everyone's a math person.

First of all, everyone's a math person.

Somewhere along the line, we got that feeling, right, where we weren't successful or we felt like it just. We weren't getting it as fast as other people. But it might have been the teacher, right? It might have been the environment, it might have been the curriculum. It was how it was like delivered or taught to us. I know I actually wasn't the greatest math student. I moved a lot, so that was part of it. But I fell in love with math once I began teaching it. So I saw all these amazing strategies and different approaches that are encouraged now. Instead of teaching like one specific algorithm to multiply numbers, like multi digit numbers, we teach kids multiple strategies and they can pick which one they're most comfortable with or that they like or makes the most sense to them. If that had been instead of just like doing a algorithm that didn't, didn't really understand. Right. And that most of us couldn't tell you why we're carrying the one. I mean, you might now, because you've been homeschooling and you're like but maybe, you know, maybe not. Maybe you're just teaching. You know, we didn't have the underlying understanding of what we're doing. And I feel like math is really shifted into trying to get kids to have really solid understanding of math and basic numeracy and place values so that they understand what they're doing before we teach them. Carry the one, put a zero. Like, why are we putting the zero down here? You know, like that whole idea, we were just practicing that over and over and over without really understanding what we're doing. That's what we made us not like math. Right. Because we were getting them wrong for like procedure instead of understanding. And so I feel like when we, we have a chance now that we're teaching to kind of relearn some of these things and see from a different perspective, like how we do them. And that can really help you love math again, like, or at least appreciate it for what it is. I know that happened to me, so I feel like it could happen to you too. But there's enough in wild math that if you definitely, if you start from the beginning, you'll just build, go along with your student and learn alongside them. And I think that's some of the magic of it too. And I, I guarantee that you are a math person and you can handle elementary math. Getting to algebra and other things might be a little bit different. But yeah, you can definitely do elementary lab and you might even come out liking it again.

You might like it again.

I didn't, I mean, you might learn.

Some things that you didn't learn in school.

Absolutely. I mean, I was blown away when I began teaching. Like, I just remember being in a second grade math class in New York City and I was just like, had I been taught this, it makes so much sense. There's strategies for addition facts. Like what? I thought you just had to memorize them. And so I, you know, that experience was just really amazing. And so I started really liking math. And everyone's always like, what do you like teaching, you know, as a teacher, like, what do you want? If you have a co teacher, you're often co teaching as a special ed teacher. And I'll be like, I'll teach math. Because no one ever wants to do it because most teachers are, you know, more like reading, writing, focus. We like books.

Right, Sure.

I am too. But you know, I often will be like, I'll teach math because I, I, I like it now. You know, I didn't, I would not call myself a super math person. I mean, I have A science degree. But it's just. I appreciate it. I get it now. You know, if I. If I had been taught this way, I might have been a math person. I might have identified that way.

Right?

Like, who knows?

Who knows? There's still time, right?

Actually, I'm a math person. I'm a math person now. I mean, I will say you get some looks, though, when people say, what do you do for your living? I'm like, I write math curriculum. And they're like, that's kind of really.

You must be smart.

Listen, it's kindergarten. But, you know.

Yeah, it's, you know, I know. Something you might know, not know about me is that I was a tutor in New York city for about 20 years, and, you know, after a certain point, you just start going out for whatever they ask you. AP Biology. I don't speak Spanish. I could try teaching this. You know, you just. I taught, you know, everything from French to biology to literature, you name it. And I always found I was strongest in the subjects where I had been the weakest in school. Because, you know, someone once told me, you heal where you're wounded. And I think if you're kind of a math genius and you're trying to teach someone who, you know, might not be a math genius how to do math, it's really hard and sometimes frustrating. Like, why don't you get this concept right? Whereas, you know, when I was in school, I was a very poor test taker, and it was a huge source of frustration for me because I was a really diligent student. I always had the answer in class, but when it came to the test, I just would doubt myself, get it wrong. A million possibilities entered my mind about how each multiple choice question could fit right. And so I just ended up being an exceptional SAT tutor because I knew exactly, you know, what was. Why is this smart kid not understanding how this test works? Well, I know because I used to not understand. So I both, like, had empathy for where the kid was coming from and was able to give them strategies. The same thing with, you know, being an entrepreneur. Like, sometimes you have to go out and raise money for grants. And I, you know, I really had a hard time fundraising when I started, like many teachers who become entrepreneurs. And so often people like coming to me for fundraising advice because I say, like, oh, my gosh, I know what it feels like to go on your first investor pitch, and people tell you, you know, you didn't get it. You know, you need to talk to a lot more people or you need to get really specific about, you know, how you're using the money to grow. I don't know. You know, and. And so I find that that's a really important thing for parents to remember, is even if you don't consider yourself strong at math, don't think of that as a weakness. Think of it as an asset. Because you're gonna not say to your kid, oh, I don't. You get this. It's so simple. You're gonna. You're gonna resonate with their problem, and then you can learn together. You know, maybe you don't remember how to do long division. I'm not sure I remember how to do long division. There's things you're.

Go Google. I mean, I.

And that's good, because then you can show your child, this is hard for me.

Right?

I'm modeling grit by figuring it out. And let's figure it out together. And then you're teaching your child how to learn when they encounter an obstacle. How cool is that? You're teaching them.

And that's more important, honestly. Yeah, but, like, you're showing that perseverance and that you don't know all the answers. Sometimes we can. You know, I get. I've gotten a lot of people that their kids are very anxious or very perfectionist. And my advice to them is to really model, like, how to kind of overcome that and not to be so focused on the right answer all the time. Be praising the process. And it's kind of along that same line. Whereas if we're just like, always. We're always being the expert and showing our kids that we know how to do all of these things, and we never show them that we're struggling or we never show them that we're like, you know, the night before watching a YouTube video on how to divide fractions because we forgot. You know, they don't see that. They don't see that relearning that you a forget things. Because my kids are always crying because they forget, like, their multiplication facts or something. And I'm like, people forget, but they. They don't see us do that. And so they, you know, if they don't see you, they're like, oh, I forgot this. I need to relearn this. Then they're not seeing the whole story, and they're just thinking that you're perfect and that they also have to be perfect. And so that's an important lesson that we're kind of also teaching that we kind of forget about that. It's not just delivering that lesson, but we're kind of modeling how to learn.

Absolutely. And I think of the word grit.

Yeah.

That became famous in Angela Duckworth's book. And, you know, even there's a metaphor there where you're working in the dirt with the wild burning. And grit is a lot about, you know, what. What happens in that moment when you get frustrated, when you get it wrong, when you fail, when you come up against an obstacle, do you say, like I used to do all the time, like, this project was such a stupid idea, I'm gonna stop? Or do you say, oh, my gosh, if I can solve this problem, I'm gonna be so much more ahead.

Right.

Than the other people, if I can push through that. And I think for me, as an entrepreneur, that was actually a real turning point when I, you know, got familiar with Angela Duckworth's work, and I started telling parents that they needed to start modeling this quality of grit. You know, when you have a problem at your job, talk about it to your kids. You know, show them how you're problem solving and you're celebrating this obstacle, and you're celebrating failure and you're pushing through it. You know, I was talking to people about this, and I think, wow, like, I really could use a lot more grit. I keep on giving up every time I don't get it. And I think. I mean, it was a real game changer in my life.

Yes.

Once I started teaching about that concept. So we love grit and then growth mindset. You're talking about just really celebrating the process, not the achievements. And then when kids start to identify with the process as opposed to identifying with something, they don't really have any control over the outcome.

Right.

You can't control if you're talented.

Right.

You're just born that way. But you can control how hard you work. Right. You push past your obstacle that you have power over. It's actionable. Yes.

And whether you keep going, keep trying.

Keep trying, try, try again, or. Or even knowing when it's time to.

Give up, that's an important one that I've definitely learned as an adult. Yeah.

Like, maybe it's time to step away from this problem for a little bit.

Yes.

But, yeah, I mean, you can definitely empower your child to learn.

Yes.

So some people might say, like, okay, I get the whole learning with my child thing. Maybe I'm more of a math person than I thought. You know, maybe. Maybe we might be. Those wheels might be training. But what about every time I try to teach my child, we get in a big fight. What would you.

That's hard. That's a hard one. Maybe I would probably say thinking about like what is triggering them. Like, is it what you're doing? Is it the topic? Is it the time? I know my kids work better in the morning, you know, are they tired? Is it really the math or the reading or the whatever it is? Is it something else getting in the way? Like for example, if you are doing something that requires a lot of writing in your math, just stick with math because. But maybe your child has a hard time writing and handwriting is hard. You can take that element away and see if it's easier to teach that concept by using, you know, like I often use the plastic numbers in my math and that's a great way to like take out the writing component. Because when you're using writing, you have your motor, you have, you're changing it in your brain from, you know, the idea to a representational number that's abstract. Then you have to do the motor planning and the process and the fine motor to actually write the number down. And so if that, if there's a problem in that part of it, then it's going to be a struggle. So take that out, see how that works. Or vice versa, you know, like vice versa. Maybe they don't like the hands on thing. I have a kid who would, my oldest would rather do a worksheet. You know, my youngest, completely opposite. He would much rather use manipulatives to show it. Do they need some support in something? So is there something you can give them, like manipulatives? If they're having trouble figuring out a multiplication problem, can they use those to help them? It's not cheating because they're actually actively figuring out the problem. But they're not just sitting there, you know, shutting down because they don't know the answer either. So it's kind of like these scaffolds that can help them. I've gotten in trouble, my own children over tone. I was a teacher and so they will be like that teacher voice. I can't stand it now. I've explained to them that I can't necessarily help that. And so I try to keep it in check. But I mean, sometimes it can be how we're delivering it too.

Sure.

You know, also, do you need to back up? Have you gone too fast? I often find that I will get pushed back when things I have gone too fast. Remember, we already know the material. So we're like, let's just, just move this along. Maybe they're not ready or maybe they don't feel they're ready. You know, there's a lot that could happen. So you just really have to kind of knit, pack and nip it, like, nitpick it apart and try to find out what's going on, what's this, and try things and then, you know, tweak, change. Sometimes taking a break. Sometimes, developmentally, they're not there. I mean, I talk about in kindergarten, people love to rush to additions, facts. But really, developmentally, it should be very last at the very least. And some kids might not be there yet. So you want. I. You want to be careful pushing that. Like, why aren't they getting, you know, like. Because it's not super developmental, and you have to have so many skills before that. So people love to rush to audition. But, you know, there's so much that comes before and that could happen in any subject, really. Reading math especially.

Yeah. I mean, I think in the. In the bank street philosophy of education, we talk a lot about the idea of unconditional positive regard, which doesn't mean necessarily, like, your child is being a perfect angel and they're all right all the time. But there's a reason that they're getting frustrated, whether. You know what Rachel said, It's, like, not a great time of day for them to learn. They need a break, they need to go slower. They need to try a different model. You know, just realizing, okay, maybe there's some way we can change the environment to make this more relaxed. And it could be you, too. Maybe you're not taking enough care of yourself and you're not in a calm.

You're in a rush, so you're frustrated. That can totally happen.

Yeah.

I mean, sometimes switching to a different parent, doing a math lesson with dad in the evening, or while the other kid, another kid, if you have more than one kid. We did this for a while where one of my kids or I worked with a kid and my husband worked for a kid with a kid, like, in the evening, like, after he came home from work, because it was just so distracting with a toddler, and the other one needed so much focus. And it was just like, we need to break this up. This is not working how it is. And it was only for a little while, but it got us over the hump. I think it was multiplication, honestly.

Yeah. I mean, like, even driver's education, as an example. Like, when I. My mom was trying to teach me to drive, it just wasn't happening. So she asked a friend to do it. And I had a single mom, you know, and if you're a single mom, you can swap. Maybe you know your friend will do it, maybe an older sibling could guide their learning and that might just break it up a little bit. But I think really at the heart of it, like self care, care for your kid. Are those basic needs being met? Are they well fed, well rested? If you are homeschooling, I always tell families like choose the freshest hour for math.

Yes.

And start with the subject they like the most. If they like math better, start with math. If they like reading, start with math. Like really choose those hours, make sure they're rested. That that will just change everything.

And I always say, and I have videos about my power hour method, but I always say focus on math and reading if they're not reading yet and writing if they're older and can read well and everything else you can just drop.

Absolutely.

I mean it happens. I'm not saying it never happens, but I'm saying for like targeted instructional time, if that's how you homeschool, then focus on those two things and the rest will fall in place.

Yes, I definitely want to put a bookmark on power hours or what we call mastery hours at modulo. But coming back to this communication issue, I think in addition to just getting those basic needs met, Maslow's hierarchy of needs is like take care of the fundamentals. Well fed, you know, cared for, rested and then the higher level educational needs afterwards. And then I would. I also want to mention that, you know, if you are trying to identify like what's wrong here? I mean they've had a good snack. They're, you know, we have their all, you know, we got diagnosed special needs. We checked that, you know, what's, what's going on. There's a really great book called how to Talk so kids will learn. I'm not sure if you're familiar with it. We'll definitely put a link in the comments and it just gives some really good techniques for communicating with children in terms of how do you reflect what they're saying so they feel listened to, make sure you're really understanding and they're heard and then also avoiding over helping. I think that happens a lot where as parents we feel this kind of urge to step in too early and instead of supporting the child's learning, we're kind of being helicopter parents a little bit where we think like, oh, like they're trying to solve this problem and instead of letting them stay in that place where their wheels are turning and they're finding different methods and we're saying, like, wow, this is hard, but I know you can get it. We're stepping in and saying, like, oh, but did you try this method? Have you tried that method? And we're kind of sending them this subtle message that they can't figure it out on their own.

I get in trouble for this all the time.

So everything is so hard not to intervene. Like, patience is the hardest thing. It's always like, I just want to help you.

Yes. And I, you know, I get in a lot of trouble with my youngest, who has a lot of learning disabilities that I jump into quickly. And I should know better as a teacher and a special educator to give that wait time, we call it. Yeah, but I just like hairdressers. He's taking forever because he doesn't know. But really, he's just slower in thinking about it.

And he's.

And I don't love this about it, but he tries to do it all in his head, you know, and so I don't like that. So I always want to jump in and be like, what's a strategy you could use to do this? You know, could you use some manipulatives? And he's just annoying. Annoyed at me because it completely interrupts his train of thought. And then he completely has to do it all over again. And it gets really annoying, frustrated. So giving it more time than you think can be a simple way to do it too.

Yeah. Even a little more time, you can practice. And it's so hard. It's so hard to wait. I mean, that urge is so visceral to support. But just remember, you are maybe not sending a good message to your kid. You're telling them you can't do it. And children's brains are just amazing what they can figure out with the right tools and environment. You know, as a teacher, you know, I've been for so long, I often find my teaching isn't boiled down to, like, I don't know, what do you think? It's like, pretty much, it seems to kind of. They just figure it out. It's wild. But, you know, and you can step in with a gentle, like, hey, do you. You want to try writing it down? No, I don't.

Okay, cool.

Right. And then maybe five minutes later, they might. And I think also it's just important to remember, like, education learning is not linear. It's not like, you know, you learn this and then you learn that at the same rate. At the same rate. At the same rate. It might feel like three months, no learning is happening. And then all of a sudden, whoa. I mean, there's kids who can't talk for a whole year, and then all of a sudden they break out in these. Right. Complete sentences. So that's not the same for every child. But just to remember, you know, every lesson, this huge mental breakthrough doesn't have to happen.

That's a good thought, too, is thinking that you could, like, coming back to something. If it's hard, if it's, like, becoming an issue you can move on and revisit later. There's nothing wrong with doing that. You don't have to do it in order. You don't have to do it before moving on to something else. Try something completely different. If you're struggling with multiplication, take a break and do some geometry. That's completely different. You know, give them some time. Maybe it's developmental. I mean, you don't. Maybe they need some other things to fall in place before they can do it totally.

And go for a walk. I mean, I do that sometimes, you know, I'm stuck on something in my business or. And I just say, I'm not going to think about this for a while, and I go for a walk. And with kids, too, sometimes at the end of the lesson, I'll just plant a seed. Hey, you know what? Just keep this in the back of your mind for the next day. And I bet then when you come back, you're going to understand, right? And nine out of 10 times, they come back the next day and say, oh, I get it now.

Right? It's true. That kind of processing time, it's really cool. It's really cool.

Okay, well, that is a lot. That's a lot. Hopefully you feel more empowered to teach your child math. I mean, I think a lot of these communication issues can be overcome. Oh, I remember what I was going to say. So a lot of parents homeschool during the pandemic, and so they think about teaching their children math, like helping kids with math homework. And that is very different. When you have your own curriculum, you're using a certain set of techniques that are taught in the curriculum. But often parents don't understand the technique that's being taught at public school. So helping kids with math homework is a lot harder than helping them with a standalone curriculum, because you've missed the whole lesson. You've missed the whole lesson. You're not on the same track. And, I mean, I experienced this because I was a sub for a while, so I would just have to jump into these different classes and where I went. And the second grade Math class again, second grade is interesting. I came in, they were doing something, I think it was learning how to add double digit numbers with this technique. I just could not get it. And finally I just said, all right, who in this class of 30 students understands this technique? And I just had a second grader walk around and explain it to everybody because I just. I couldn't get it. I wasn't. I didn't know that specific Common Core.

Right.

Newest double digit adding techniques, kind of.

Like partial products or something.

But yeah.

Yeah. But if you're not familiar with it. Right. Then it's. It's any. You have no background of what happened that day or what they taught or what they're asking them to do. And we only know the way we learned, which was one way. So, yeah, it's definitely easier, I feel like, to teach math than to do math homework, especially if you're un. If you, you know, like most of us learned a traditional math curriculum.

Yeah. And Rachel's curriculum is designed for parents in mind. It's not designed for math genius parents or math teacher parents. I mean, there's no way your curriculum would be this successful if the average parent who didn't think they're a math person couldn't teach it. So I would just put that in your head. Like, if you did do pandemic schooling and you found it incredibly frustrating, or like, I could never homeschool because that whole year was fighting with my kid about math. They're so behind. It was the worst, you know? You know, I can't afford a tutor. Just try with a standalone curriculum. Just give it a try. You might find it's a much different experience.

It's hard to bridge that, like, school home thing. Like, it just doesn't really work.

Yeah.

It's two different styles. It's too different. Too many people, too many hands in the pot. You know what I mean? Someone else is telling you what to do, so you kind of lose that element that we were talking about of like I can. Of tailoring what they're doing and how fast they're moving and what they're skipping. And you're kind of remove all of that and you have someone else that's dictating that's not even there. I mean, it's different than even being in school. Right. Because they don't even see your kid in school. So. Yeah. I feel like pandemic schooling, even for homeschoolers, was rough.

Yeah.

And I feel like, give it a chance.

Right. And of course the kid is going to Be frustrated, like you're trying to help me with this thing I learned in class. You don't know anything about a mom. You weren't there.

Yeah, you get that a lot.

But you're. There's no division when you're doing a standalone curriculum. You're both in it together. And.

And there's no homework.

No homework.

The.

What do you say the homework is the lesson. It's like kind of like a co on or something.

I don't know. I mean, the. You already did it. You're already at home. But there's no like.

Right? Yeah. It could be at a cafe.

It's nothing like you're giving them to have to do.

Yeah.

After the lesson.

No, it's just there, you learn it. You're done.

You know, and Power Hour is over.

Power Hour is finished. I can do whatever you want after that. Not anything. Yeah. So I hope that that gives you a little more confidence. And, you know, also, parents say, like, I'm not. How, how can I do this better than a trained teacher? I'm not trained to teach. A certified teacher is going to be better. And yes, if you're using standardized curriculum, you do need training for that. I cannot teach second grade math because I am not trained for second grade math. I cannot, you know, excel at a second grade math test. I don't know. I haven't taken one. But, you know, but you can teach your child with a curriculum that is designed for parents. And you can teach them a lot better than they can learn in school because you're doing one on one mastery learning.

I think it's the one on one. I think. I think people could jump in and teach a curriculum, especially nowadays. It's very scripted. Yeah. But there is some training, right?

You can teach second grade math.

Yeah, you can. Anyone can.

All right, all right.

I mean, it's just new, Right. There's a learning curve. You would have to learn something. Right. You would have to try. You're not going to just be able to be like, I took second grade and so I can teach second grade math. Right. Like, you're going to have to remember things, but you could do it. But I think the key you landed on was that you are one on one with your child. And that is a completely different thing than 25 or 30 on one in a whole class situation. And so you are able to readily adapt to what you're doing, to what you're seeing in front of you and what you're having trouble with. You can stop if you don't understand and watch a YouTube video or research how to do something if you're not sure. Right. So like you kind of have so much more flexibility and an ability to like change things up if they're not ever going to get this partial products, that method. You don't have to teach partial products. It's in my curriculum. But you don't have to teach it if you don't want to. You can skip it because you're in charge. And that that's what's different than if someone from school is telling you what you need to do on this worksheet, right?

Absolutely. And I mean, educators are incredible. If you are a teacher, you have to understand how lots of different children learn. You have to be able to communicate effectively with a large group. You have to understand developmental stages really well. It's incredible what teachers do. It takes a lot of talent, a lot of hard work and passion. But if you're helping your own child, you have such a huge advantage. I mean, you understand them better than any teacher would. I think that it is hugely valuable for parents to leave to learn a little bit about pedagogy. But you don't have to get master's degree. There's some, you know, we have a tip sheet that we can send to you. And you know, learning about communication, of course, like that's important as a parent. It's not just important for the academic part, but all the other learning you're doing with your child about how to relate in the world. So I personally feel as a teacher, you know, that you're going to be a better teacher for your child than I am because you understand them. They, it's possible they learn very similarly to the way you learn. And maybe not sometimes that's not the case. But you're listening all the time. You're learning all the time. You're building upon your knowledge about your child. You've known them for years.

Right. And it's one on one because it's always more effective and faster one on one usually than it would be with a whole, whole group.

Absolutely. And Rachel's curriculum is a mastery based curriculum, which means one concept builds upon the next. And there's just been so much research. I mean, you can look at our own talking about Bloom's two sigma problem and that when students learn one on one with a mastery based curriculum, I think it's two sigma, which they learn 90% better than the rest of students in the class. And that's regardless of like what kind of training the teacher has. So you. You can do it. You can teach your child. Child. Well, I believe in you. Give it. Give it a good try with a good curriculum. So let's dive into something a bit controversial.

Oh, wow.

So lots of anger, lots of politics around what is taught in school. In public schools.

Yeah.

Common Core. How is your curriculum different than what is taught in typical public schools? How is it it similar?

Right. So when developing.

Let's start with math.

Yeah, let's talk about math first.

Then we can.

So when I developed Wild Math, I looked at all the curriculum, including what is called Common Core. Now I have a little beef with the anti Common Core. I know, right. Because I feel like people just don't really understand what it is.

I still really understand what it is.

Common Core is just the name we have given a group of standards that were kind of revamped a little bit, but when you dig into them, they really are very similar to what we have always had. Third graders are still required to learn multiplication and division facts. You know, we're still teaching kids how to add and subtract. Where it gets misconstrued is how some of those things are being taught in schools and through some of these curriculums. I know in my state we have. I guess I won't even say, but I do live in New York. That helps. We traveled it together.

Yeah.

Very quickly. In response to no Child Left Behind. They haven't really changed it all that much. And sometimes it's just like pretty inappropriate. Or they're using. And what they're doing is they're teaching some strategies.

Right.

Because in this Common Core, they say students will understand and be able to use multiple strategies to solve addition and subtraction, multi digit addition, subtraction in second grade, for example. They don't really say that you have to teach partial products or the standardized algorithm or a different way to teach those things. In the Common Core. They don't. They don't say those things.

Things. Right. So it's just not how you.

Right. What it is is we're saying kids should have a multiple. Be shown several different strategies and be able to solve problems with different strategies. It does not say they need to learn partial products. So I feel like that's where we kind of get mixed up. So Common Core itself just made. What was really great about it is it kind of made a national curriculum, a national set. Like all third graders should learn this in third grade. And before, we kind of had a hodgepodge of every different state and even almost different school district could be In a different thing, in a different place, in a completely different, even a different year. Like there was no standardization before it. And so for a kid like me, that moved a lot. That was really problematic, especially in math, because people were teaching all different kinds of things in all different times and you couldn't just easily move, you know. So it does help that where we have gone wrong is the interpretation on how it's delivered in specific curriculums. And, and there's a disconnect between how we learned math and how math is being taught now, which is more about flexible thinking and problem solving. Right. You can solve a problem in more than one way and have it be right as opposed to there's just one way. You have to carry the one, you have to put the zero. And if you're not doing that, that you're not going to get it. And the focus was on the answer as opposed to how to solve the problem. Because we have calculators in our pockets now. We do not need to make calculators. Before we would, you know, think of like, you know, Prairie times one room schoolhouses, you had to be able to do mental calculations. Yeah, we don't really need to be 100 accurate and in calculations. What we need are people that consult solve problems and use computers and tools to help us solve the problems. It doesn't mean that they still can't. It doesn't mean that they shouldn't know how to, you know, calculate those things. But the focus is not on the answer anymore.

So that's my beef, so that's my.

Beef with Common Core. And I feel like it's just very, it's people's frustration with not knowing how to solve do their kids homework has kind of over shadowed what is really Common Core and it's really the curriculum and how it's not being explained and parents aren't being shown these other ways and why and explain. So when I made my curriculum I kind of looked at everything and Common Core isn't like perfect. There's definitely some concepts that it misses, I feel like or doesn't put enough in. And so I made sure that I put that in my curriculum because I looked at a range. But I also wanted who, if you were using wild reading and, or wild math and you put your child in school later on, I wanted them to be able to just dive in and not, you know, not be behind or not understand. I want, I, I feel very strongly that a lot of those methods are important and that kind of idea of problem solving is important. So I made sure to kind of of put that all in there. I love it.

So what's step one? I order wild math. I'm good to go. It's like, all right, I'm not, not a math person. I'm gonna learn with my chat of all these great communication techniques under my belt. What's the first step is like, do I just kind of pick up the book and. Oh, here we go. There's the book. So kindergarten. So I'm. I might. So here my, my theoretical kid is in kindergarten.

Introduction.

Okay.

I would. There is a planner. I think it's in the background.

It's a downloadable PDF. So you order it, print it out.

Kindergarten's definitely printable. You can have it printed.

Beautiful.

But I would not. I would resist the urge to plan out your whole year. I would resist the urge to plan out your whole first month. So yeah, there are planner. There's a whole planner in every single grade now.

You don't have to be a planner.

You don't have to follow it. So I. The reason I caution people about planning too much is you. Your plan will change and that child in front of you guarantee will learn at a different pace than what I have set out. And so you just want to plan like a week ahead, pick out some activities, depending on your style. If you like to know what you're going to do, then you're going to pick your activities ahead of time. If you are more flexible, you might just want to read over the activities under a certain skill or two and then kind of have those in your back pocket or have the materials ready so that when you're outside on a nature walk, you can be like, hey, look at these great acorns. Let's see how many there are. Can we find a hundred? Or depending on whatever you're working on, you would just kind of pull one of those activities. You don't have to use Cheerios. You can use blocks. I love blocks.

So this is just so great. I have the book open and every. When you. All your weekly planning include the skill that your child is learning. So you have that super objective and the activity that you're going to do. So you can kind of get a sense of what it's going to feel like. And then material. So like for one activity, we just have chalk. Chalk is the material that you use. And it's just. It's so.

And there's also game and picture book recommendations. So every unit of Wild Math has games and picture book lists at the end of the unit that Relate to those skills so that you can integrate those. So if you are a person or a don't want to be outside in the pouring rain, 40 degrees, I understand. That's fine. Maybe you pull out a math game that day. I also give my kids choices. How do you want to do math today? Do you want to go outside? Do you want to play a game? You want to read a book and do an activity? So it's a little more choice driven. You can even give them specific activity choices. Do you want to work with acorns on counting today or do you want to, you know, go look for shapes or something, you know, downtown or something?

Absolutely. And I think that brings up a great point about communication as well. If you give your child a choice between two things, it's going to be a lot easier than saying, what do you want to do today? That children don't really engage very well at that level of abstract thinking, especially in their kindergarten, first, second grade. So, you know, even, you know, when it comes to lunchtime, just say like, what do you feel like eating for lunch? You're not going to get very far, probably. But if you say ice cream. Yeah, ice cream. Or if you say, okay, do you want salad or Mac and cheese?

Right.

They'll choose salad, of course. Right.

Some might sometimes, maybe not with Mac and cheese and my kids, but some might.

Wonderful. Well, is there anything about wild math that we should touch on before we maybe take break and dive into wild reading?

No, I think you just have to be open to a little bit different style, especially if you're used to like a workbook kind of based curriculum, that this is going to be a little more hands on, a little more, a little more in teacher intensive because you can't just throw a worksheet at your kid. But as a result, you're going to have less resistance. Right. So it's a trade off. You might have to do a little bit more, especially in the beginning as you get used to it. It kind of. You get used. It's not so diff. It's not so different. And then you kind of get in your groove. But I feel like sometimes that transition and if you're resisting prepping for the entire year, which a lot of people try to do, I get a lot of emails about, I need all of the materials for the entire year and I need to know everything. I'm like, no, you do not need to know because maybe your kid hates chalk.

Embrace uncertainty.

I know. So just focus on a little bit at a time. And I Think you'll be much more successful.

Yeah. And again, you know, if you are that very type a planner and you just feel like, I have to have this, you know, maybe think, what are you modeling to your kid?

Right.

They have to have everything planned out too. And maybe you can. Can grow and change. And I would just say this is something for parents who are excited about engaging with their children and learning. If you're looking for just like, hey, take this app and learn on your own, or, yeah, it's not for you. This is for people who want to be involved and I think.

Or can be the ability. Maybe you have five kids. Maybe that wouldn't be the best.

Maybe that wouldn't be the best. And, you know, and I would also say that, you know, it's incredibly rewarding, even if you don't consider yourself teacher or like, teaching, to be involved with your children's education that way. It's incredibly helpful to them to have that. And I think parent involvement in education has been shown repeatedly to make more difference than any other factor. So, you know, if you're not sure about it, a lot of homeschoolers I talk to say, like, try it in the summer.

Yeah.

You know, just say, like, we're going to do some math play or One day a week.

Week.

One day a week.

You can combine it. Remember, you can combine it with any traditional curriculum. And maybe, maybe you start getting so much pushback on the traditional curriculum, that's what often happens, that you ditch it all together, you know, because you see that your kid is just. You don't have to fight with them, you know, maybe. Hopefully.

Absolutely. And if you're unsure, you know, you can just get one unit on the Wild math site. You don't have to get everything at once.

Yeah.

So just. Just give it a try. Why not Figure out if you like it, if it's. If it's fun. So great. Well, we just love Wild math so much. We've gotten so much positive feedback from families. I mean, this is a great curriculum. Nothing has worked for your child. Goes all the way to fifth grade. Right. Maybe more. More coming. Nope, that's it.

Not right now.

Yeah. So, you know, and you know, I would just add, we talked about Common Core, but just symbolic and spatial awareness is so important for cognitive development, for mental health. So this is gonna help your child learn to love math. And Rachel is incredible. She has this whole wild reading program. And we're going to talk about the very hot topic of literacy. Gets us all fired up, no pun intended. When we come back from this break.

Yeah. I just want to say, if you want to learn more about Wild learning, go to discoverwildlearning.com and I'd love it if you followed me on Instagram and Facebook at, at Discover Wild Learning and you can see our homeschool adventures. And I post a lot of videos about how to teach certain lessons. So if you're struggling in that way too, you can check that out.

Maybe we can even get a little discount for a modular community. We'll have a little code for you in the, in the podcast.

Yeah, let's do it.

Thanks. Hi, everyone. I'm Manisha, the founder of Modulo. We provide community resources and expert support for homeschooling families. And I'm so excited to be back here for part two of our interview with my friend and collaborator and incredible curriculum developer, Rachel Tid, who built the Wild Learning, Wild Math and Wild Reading series. It's a nature based curriculum, mastery based, easy to use at home with your children. And we went quite in depth with Wild Math in part one. So now we're going to talk a little bit about Wild Reading.

Yeah, I'm excited.

So, Rachel, could you just tell us a little bit about how the curriculum came to be and what it is?

Yeah. So Wild Reading, as I said a little bit in the first video came out of, I had done K through 5 wild math and I felt like while reading outside was like the next big step, I'm really big into teaching academic skills in the outdoor environment. And so Wild Reading was like the next big thing. But you know, teaching reading is such a big, big topic and it was a big undertaking. So wild reading, level one, we have level one and we have level two is over 400 pages. I made it a lot more structured and easy to follow for parents because it is such a complex topic and it should be kind of done in a sequential order.

So.

And I try to make a lot of resources and make it really easy for parents and that, you know, that's what happens. So I have this kind of sequential explicit phonics instruction along with all my favorite elements of things like Waldorf. So it's got a big storyline and storytelling, like of a story that you read to your child. It has tons of hands on outdoor activities. And then Wild Reading one especially has a ton of enrichment activities that you can pick and choose from or skip altogether, but they kind of go with the overarching theme of the week.

Wonderful. So if I'm just getting started on this curriculum, maybe my child doesn't know how to read at all. Or they are, you know, we need a little extra support in school or haven't started yet. How do I get started?

So Wild Reading is really great because it's pretty open and go. And I would start with just reading the introduction because that really does explain a lot about how it's set up and why it's set up and why I chose certain things. And then it's a week by week curriculum. You can take longer. That was just how the best way to organize it. And the first thing you're always going to do is start with a read aloud of the story of Matilda of the mouse in Wild Reading one. And it's a cute story about a mouse and a long adventure up to a majestic mountain. And so each week is a different letter. So week one is M. Majestic mountain, Matilda the mouse.

Love it.

There she is, Matilda. And she's so cute.

This beautiful mouse actually.

So my friend Monica wrote the story and her daughter is an amazing artist and so she did these pictures for the curriculum and it was really awesome. So yeah. So I would start by. Every week has. You can look one more.

If you're listening to the podcast, we are sharing the book.

But. But you can also see this on my website there is a preview of the first chapter and on the page, the first page there's a big letter M and it all ends the skills and the focus for the week. And then each day what you need to do and what you'll be doing. And then the rest of the pages go week or day by day telling you and explaining exactly what you're going to do for each one of those. The letter M chapter, I will say is longer than the other chapters because everything is new. And so I'm explaining how to do all of the things that a lot of them you're going to do the same thing for each week. So it's like a kind of like a routine or a rhythm that you're going to follow so your kid can kind of know what to expect and you will know what to expect. So it's kind of a lot in the beginning it feels like, but as you get into it, you'll see that it's a rhythm and a repetition of like the same kind of activity. But so you just get used to it. And so it's like less planning, less work once you get the hang of it.

Wonderful. Yeah. So just get started. Every lesson has some tools you can find in the forest or in your house.

It's very handy and it's all listed in there.

All listed, you have materials, no need to plan your year.

Everything by week is best. Because you don't know if your child takes longer, then you might want to go longer. If your child knows quite a few skills, I suggest just reading the story, maybe doing a few review activities and going a little faster until you hit the part the first couple letters introduce. First couple weeks introduce the main letters. Once we have enough letters to make a word, then we start doing blending sounds into words. So if your kid's already ready to blend words, you can go a little faster. It is not a program that necessarily teaches letters if your child does not have any background in letters. It is more for kids that are ready to start blending sounds into words. That's typically at around age 5 or 6. If you are more of the Waldorf or want to teach your child later, seven or whenever you feel is ready is fine. What I suggest, if your child is unfamiliar with any letter sounds, that or you have a younger child that's not ready to blend sounds to go through the curriculum and skip all of the word families, all of the sight words, and just read the story, work on the phonological processing, phonological awareness, not processing, and do some of the enrichment activities. Read the books that are based on the letter, start working on that letter formation and then come back after you go through the whole thing. Come back and then go through it as it was kind of intended to be and do the. Those word families and phonics that are sequential in all the reading.

Wonderful. So this brings up a question for me, which is how do I know when my child is ready to start reading? And I imagine that some kids pick up those letters on their own.

Right.

Sometimes families make an effort to teach their kids letters of the Alphabet. Some kids might have learned them preschool or.

Yeah.

Through a caregiver. So, you know, it's interesting. I have a confession to make. I try to, you know, be cool on social media, but I did get into a rather heated debate. I'm not very proud of myself. I don't mean I'm so unreactive. Right. You know, someone posted something about, you know, like, if kids can learn how to read it too, why not teach them how to read it too? And I, I have this really intense reaction when I feel like, like people are pushing kids to read before they're express an interest in reading or feel ready to read. And I also have seen families be so worried and upset sometimes because their child doesn't know how to Read at age five.

Right.

Or age six. And there's an idea that if you learn how to read earlier, that's somehow better. In our culture, there's a lot of emphasis on early, early, early learning. Even though a lot of research shows that if you. You teach a child, you know, let kids play for a while, learn while they might learn better. So I was curious to know.

Rachel, that's a lot of questions.

When do I teach my child how to read? What is the right time?

You know, I think it's really kind of dependent on the child and the family and what you want to do. However, I mean, reading is based on language skills. And so. So it makes sense that unless your child naturally is learning to read at, like, a very young age, which I will admit, I have one child of each. So I have a child that read very early, very, very early without instruction. And then I have a child who has struggled and struggled, has dyslexia, and has needed intensive intervention to learn to read.

So I have a child taught himself how to read.

My older child.

Your older child. Okay.

My older child was one of those kids that we hear about that just read, and that's only like, 10 of children. So those are the kids that we often hear those. Oh, it just, you know, they'll just teach themselves how to read. But the reality is that our brains are wired for language, and we have to have the language skills and we have to be able to hear those language, those. Those phonemes, those sounds of the letters. We need to be able to hear them in words, differentiate them, manipulate them. So, like, if I said the stop, the. The word stop, could you add a T at the end and that would be stopped. Right. So you can play these word games. That's why kids love rhyming and, you know, all those, like, hopscotch games and jump ropes, because we're playing around with those sounds, and that is the base that we need to be able to learn to read. And if we don't have that and it's not. Those skills are not solid, and being able to manipulate those phonemes and hear those phonemes, then they're not going to be super successful at learning to read. They also need a background in, like, vocabulary. That's where they're reading aloud. You know, we often hear if we just read to kids, they will learn to read. Well.

They.

It definitely helps, but it's not the be all, end all. Reading aloud helps build our language skills. It helps build over our vocabulary so that when we blend the sounds in a Word. We know what the word means and reading aloud helps build those comprehension skills. However, it does not teach us how to what those the sound to print representation of like the letter B makes the bus sound. And in this word we're going to spread it, you know, blend it into the word bus. It is not explicitly teaching the code and how to sum those words out, which about 65% of kids need some instruction in that area. In very few, like my older son can just get that code. Some with a little bit of instruction can then get the rest of it. But still, statistics show 40% of kids will need explicit instruction in phonics and phonological awareness to learn to read.

What are some indicators that a child is ready to learn how to read?

Yeah, so you want them to know their letters, the names and the sounds. And some people argue that the sounds, and I think I kind of used to be one of these, that the sounds are more important to know. While it's true that we want them to know the sounds that the letters make, and those are what we use to blend to make words. If you don't know the letter and what it looks like, you don't have the print to sound concept. So it's really hard to do spelling, to look at a letter and know that that's a P and that makes then makes the P sound. Like those are all related. So you really need all of those. I wouldn't say you need to be completely solid to start wild reading, but if you have most of them, most of the sounds, you can identify all of your letters, then you're ready. I do have a little guide in the beginning of the book and on the website about when wild reading one would be the best. But I think that knowing your Alphabet and knowing the sounds that they make and being able to kind of manipulate sounds and rhyme are really what you need to be able to do before learning to read.

And what would you say is the age range where that starts to happen?

Yeah, so I would say, you know, some really precocious kids are often like late 4 could. I don't really like starting that young. I really am a playbate person. So I would say five, late five, six, probably six is a really good age. I feel like five is still really, really young. And I know if you are a younger, like a parent of younger kids and your oldest is just getting to that point that it's really hard to resist in jumping into teaching them to read or reading in general. It's so hard. We have a lot of Societal pressure too. But I feel like five is really young and that most kids, I mean, it's really good to like talk about sounds and letters and words and that kind of thing. It's not saying that at all, but like sit down instruction. I feel like six is good for me.

Right. And that's actually a lot later than a lot of people might think or feel comfortable with around reading. So it's good to know that your child can be incredibly accelerated in life if they start learning how to read later.

Yeah.

And, and some kids will say they want to learn how to read at age 3. And if a child expresses an interest.

Then I would go for it. At least really gently, really slowly. You know, you can be learning how to read and working on some of those sounds. The games make sure they have those sounds and all those phonological skills in place and, and then just slowly show them how to blend, you know, very short vowel words, like, you know, short a words or go through wild reading just like really slowly. Because they might not be developmentally ready. You don't. Just because they want to doesn't mean they're ready. But you can kind of scope it out. If you're going slow, try it out, see how they do.

Awesome. You know, you and I have been educators for so long, I think we've really opted into this slow down to speed up later mentality. And just the idea that you might wait to learn something is, I think probably pretty radical for a lot of people. You know, you get so much social affirmation from saying, my child knows how to read and they're only blah, blah, blah, Right. Or oh my gosh, this kid knows how to read and mine doesn't. What's wrong with us? So I'm curious to know, like, what are some drawbacks to teaching a child to learn how to read when they're three or four or five?

Well, I mean, outside of children like my oldest who just taught like could read, that child is very precocious. So that's like a different category. If we're pushing children that are otherwise reading on their own, they're not, they don't have those skills, those phonological awareness skills, those language skills that I talked about, they're just, they don't have enough there to do the next step in reading development. And so when we're pushing that, we're pushing earlier, we're losing all of that time of language development. It's really a continuum of development. So the, some of the studies have shown that those kids, kids that were teaching earlier, whether they're successful or not actually end up not being as strong readers later. I mean it doesn't mean you can't do it, but it's something to think about it. It didn't apply to my oldest. He's a very, very strong reader. But I also didn't teach him, I didn't force it on him. So there's that aspect. But I feel like, you know, if you wait till five or, or six that you're going to have a much stronger base of language and phonological awareness that has to be in place before you can learn to read. So when we have kids that are struggling to learn to read, it is usually because somewhere in that phonological awareness that sound to print relationship is not doing well or they don't have a strong base in that. And that's where also dyslexia comes in where that there's an impairment in that ability to hear those sounds and divide like break those sounds up and identify where they go to which phoneme and which grapheme which is the letter. So yeah, so it's all kind of, it's all related. If you don't have that foundational base, then you can't move to the next step.

So helpful. And you talk a lot about the science of reading and how I, I believe if I understood you correctly, one of the reasons you decided to build this program is you didn't feel or you. It's a fact that the science of reading is not being applied in a lot of traditional schools. And yes. Can you talk, tell people what is the science of reading that the Internet seems all about?

Yes, it is a buzz, right? Yeah, yeah, it's all, it's a huge topic right now. So the science of reading is really a body of knowledge in scientific study from cognitive science, neuroscience that has shown we have now can see and have figured out. And it's not just now we have known for a while but the body of evidence has just grown of how our brains learn to read and that the way we have been teaching children to read for like the last 30 years is wrong. And it's unfortunately kind of gotten caught up in kind of like a political thing. And there's a lot of curriculum things where people are, you know, certain curriculums caught on and styles caught on and kind of pushed the other way of reading, which we can just be explicit is more of like what was known as whole language where we believed that if we put a child in a language and print rich environment then they would just naturally learn how to read. And this is really attractive to those of us that love reading and love books because, like, what's better than curling up with a good book? Right? And they'll just absorb it just like they absorb language. Right. Just how we learn to read. However, we know now through MRIs and lots of scientific studies, that the brain is wired for language, but it is not wired for reading and print and writing. So our brain actually has to make new pathways to learn to read with. With areas that we have, but it kind of like, like reuses those and repurposes them to be able to learn to read. And in that when we look at a word and they can see this done on an mri, we actually look at and process every single letter in a word. So when we previously. And maybe you still do it. And I know teachers everywhere still do this because it's just coming into vogue when we're teaching kids to look at the picture and not look at the words and make a guess or look at the first letter. Yes. So I often, you know, sight words have lots of different meanings, and I use it in wild reading one. But sight words can mean different things.

Right? Okay.

So, yeah, so we're looking at that word, and we're just saying, what do you think's happening? You know, I am. And there's a picture of a clown. You're showing a kid to not look at the letters. They're looking at the pictures. And that's actually really innocent, efficient. It's using the opposite side of your brain. And it's a habit that poor readers use. And so we're teaching children to use habits that are not efficient. They're what poor readers use. And not looking at the letters, which is what we need to do. And our brains, that's how it works. That's how we learn to read. And I've gotten some. You're gonna like this. So I've gotten some comments on. I ranted. We love rant.

We like. We like.

I ranted a little on social media about the. Miss, you know, the myths out there about this. And someone said, well, were those children homeschoolers that they were studied? Because it's very different.

Sure.

But my response to that is that our brains are the same no matter where we are, that we can't change our brains, anatomy, and how they work. So no matter where you're learning, whether you're at home or at school, it doesn't matter. That's how our brains learn to read. So they have to look at the word. It's called orthographic mapping. And we once we have orthographically mapped our word, once our brains look at that word, and that's what we think is automatic, right? That's the automatic of sight word. Because it seems automatic to us. It seems like we're looking at the whole word and we have it memorized when it really is. We have gone through this brain process of mapping this word where we can look at all of those letters instantaneously and know that that is the word cup. We don't have to sound it out anymore. But it takes a lot of practice usually to get those words into that orthographic mapping and into that. That memory. Right.

And one point people might be wondering about is why is this approach taught in public schools that's not aligned with the science of reading. And apparently it's political, right?

Yeah, it's partly political. So, you know, this research is 20 to 30 years old, at least. But a couple different things happened. There was a bunch, a whole federal study that was done and how to get our reading scores up. And they determined, based on science of reading like, that this was a good way. But then it became kind of political and certain political parties kind of of got involved, and then it got shot down and they kind of lost momentum. And then at the same time, certain curriculums that were proposing, not proponents of this, what's called queuing, where you're looking at the picture, look at the first letter, what makes sense, all of these things that you've probably heard or even said yourself, which I know I have in grad school, I went to graduation grad school in the early 2000s. I'm dating myself here, very early 2000s. And this is what we learned in school, balanced literacy. Trying to strike a balance between whole language and phonics. Right. That was the idea to like, kind of bring the two camps together. But there was no real. Like the phonics was kind of once in a while or where you thought it would go. There wasn't sequential and explicit instruction. And it just kind of this whole reading workshop and things just kind of caught on and just got momentum. And there's some disconnect between the scientists and the educators and kind of understanding what the science is. Right. So it was like hard to communicate across. They're kind of in two different worlds. Like, if you think of most. Most colleges, a college of education is over here where the cognitive science and neuroscience are over here, and they don't really talk. And so for a while, it Just kind of got lost, unfortunately, and, and now it's coming to light. There's a great podcast called Sold a story done by NPR that covers the whole history, if you're interested in it, and a really compelling way. And I really suggest that if you're interested.

Wonderful. Well, this has been so informative, Rachel. I just, I guess I have two very practical questions for parents who are interested in getting started. One, you know, if my child has perhaps already started to read in school and I'm beginning homeschooling, or I just feel like they're not really learning what they're supposed to be, or I want them to learn according to the science of reading. How do I know where to start in the book? There's step one.

I do have a placement on my blog for whether level one is good for you or level two. I suggest looking at the table of contents and thinking about what your child can read. If you're reading some decodable books with your child, what sounds can they read? Can they read all their short vowels? Generally, level one is short vowels, open syllables, blends and digraphs. And level two starts off at reviewing digraphs and blends and then moving on to like silent E and vowel teams and R controlled vowels and syllable types. And so if you aren't solid in your short vowels, start with level one. And if you're past short vowels, probably level two is going to be be your best bet.

Wonderful. Well, it has been such a treat to have you here today, Rachel. I feel like we could talk about this topic.

We'll do another one.

Maybe we'll do another one. I mean, we didn't get a chance to go as deep into power hours as we wanted to, but Rachel calls them power hours. I call them mastery hours. We really feel like with one on one learning, you can spend an hour or two a day on math and reading. It's very efficient. It's plenty of time to to accelerate very quickly and develop a deep understanding. Also, these programs are fantastic for children with dyslexia or advanced students. So I hope you've gotten some good tips about when to get started if this is going to be a good fit for your child. It's beautifully designed program and we have a special discount for you with the code modulo M O D U L O. I believe you can get 10% off. So Rachel, can you just tell everyone where to find wild math and wild reading?

Yes. So you can find me at discover wild learning.com and on social media, Instagram and Facebook at Discover Wild Learning and I post all about our homeschool journey and activities as well as helpful videos that explain how to do different math things or different activities and methods in the WILD Reading curriculum. So that can be helpful.

Great. So go to wild learning.com discover discover wild learning.com discover wild learning I know.com it'll be in the comments on our video and on our podcast. And if you have any more questions or comments or a heated response to what we're saying. Everyone's passionate about this talk, please please put in the comments. At least for the next week or so. Rachel and I will be answering questions and comments. We can do another one if you have other questions. We'd love to your ideas for a follow up episode. But thank you so much for tuning in with us by the fire in this first in person episode and we are excited to hear if you try the curriculum and and what your thoughts are.

Yeah Questions.

Thanks for being here.

Thanks.

Thanks Rachel.