Home Schooling Part 9: Guess Work and Early Reading Habits

Originally written in November 2014 as 'Guess Work' — Updated for clarity and reflection in 2026.

We are now entering week nine of home schooling and things are beginning to split into two paths at once. As a trained class teacher it is fascinating to watch William develop independently rather than within a classroom. It is also slightly frustrating.

William is thriving in the less is more unschooled approach. Without realising it, he is producing more work than he ever did in school. His pictures, writing, discussions and understanding are all growing at a pace that feels natural to him. The only area that has dipped slightly is his reading.

[Image 2. William wearing a navy blue and white patterned knitted jumper. Is sat at a small white desk reading a book]

This is normal. When I taught Year 1 I often saw children regress a little when they were pushed to a harder level. They step back before they move forward. It was finding a point where a child would read when they were ready to. William is doing exactly that. I recently moved him to level 3 of the Oxford Reading Tree scheme. He can read it with encouragement, which is average for his age, although the regression shows in his guess work.

[Image 3. A Oxford Tree Book called "New Trainers". The main character Kipper is kicking a football]

I wrote about this before in my post on common bad habits children develop when learning. William was taught to rely on pictures to identify difficult words. As the books get harder he guesses more. A sentence like “Kipper’s new pet, Pat the fat bat, sat on Dad’s hat” becomes “fat bat sat on hats”. It is understandable, although it means he misses the story.

 

It is frustrating because I want him to feel confident and happy reading higher levels. Our semi structured approach means I do not pressure him to move on too quickly. He progresses at his own pace. Today I tried something different. I gave him a lower level book, hoping he would read without guessing. He still guessed. He is now so used to assuming the text is harder that he jumps straight to the guess.

So how do we move past this?

I am not sure. If you have suggestions I would love to hear them.

This is our 9th post on our home schooling, you can read Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6, Part 7, and Part 8 here. 

2026 Reflection

Reading this again reminds me how early we were in the home schooling journey. I was still learning how William learned. I was also learning how much of school he had absorbed without me realising. The guessing habit became a theme that ran through several posts that year. It showed me how much unpicking, or shall we say unschooling, we had to do before we could rebuild something that worked for him.

This post sits at the point where I was still trying to balance structure with freedom, and fining a routine that works. I can see now how often I worried about doing it wrong. I can also see how much pressure I put on myself to fix habits that had taken years to form. Later posts showed how those habits slowly changed as we found our rhythm and created an environment around him. They also showed how much confidence William gained once reading became something he owned rather than something he performed.

Looking back, this was the moment I realised home schooling was not about recreating school at home. It was about understanding the child in front of me. It allowed me to take slower more concentrated steps, like focusing on sound and letter recognition. It was about noticing the small things, like the way he guessed, the way he avoided certain words and the way he lit up when something clicked. Those early weeks shaped the rest of our approach. They also shaped the posts that followed, especially the ones where I explored the wider views, questions, responses, styles, and benefits of home school that eventually looked into the advantages of home schooling in general. 

This is our 9th post on our home schooling, you can read Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6,  Part 7, and Part 8 here

If you would like to read more into other bad habits children have when learning, click here. 

Or, you would like to follow our home school journey, then please click here.