Unschooling Reading

Elazar came over to me and asked me to write (actually, he asked me to "type" but he handed me a pencil and paper) some words for him to read.  Up until now, Ari did two or so informal reading sessions with him because he felt he was ready.  Our policy of reading is pretty much that we teach only when we are asked.  Whenever Elazar asks us to read him something (which he often does, because he can't read), we read it to him.  That does sometimes mean that he calls me over every few minutes to read something else.  Elazar will be 7 in two weeks.   Sometimes, when he asks me to read something and it seems simple, I ask him to try to sound it out.  Sometimes, when he asks me how to type something, I ask him what letters he thinks.  A few weeks ago, he pulled out a book with words with only short vowel sounds and read it with me.  This is the first time in his life that he asked me to write down things for him to read.

This morning, I wrote, and he read:

SPILL
JACKET
PANTS
BASKET
FIRST
TOOTH (I underlined the "oo" and the "th" to teach him those phonemes)
THIRD (to review the "th")
SECOND
FOURTH (he forgot the "th" and read it as the next word)
FART (he found that highly amusing)
FIFTH (to practice "th")
SIXTH
SEVENTH (he told me to stop writing "places")
SANDBOX

He also did some addition and asked me to help him work on writing the number "3" so I wrote a few for him to trace.