Fantasy and learning

Fantasy is putting reality into something . Ironically it is actually used to make things real. Kids use fantasy to make sense of the real world around them. That is why kids like to play with cars, simply because that is what they see around them and try to make real for themselves by pretending and fantasising riding a car.

My son aged three sometimes pretends to read. I see it though as if he is just practicing reading and acting or fantasising the actual act of reading. It doesn’t matter whether or not he is really able to understand the letters or words. He is just acting as if the forms (called letters) he is seeing have a certain meaning. Just as when he was a baby he was trying to make sense of vowels and consonants by moving his tongue and lips and basically vibrating air. Bit by bit he found out that certain sounds had a certain meaning. Did we ever actively teach him that? Now a few years later bit by bit through trial and eror he is finding out whether or not a certain letter indeed has this or that meaning. Then at some point he will notice that certain combinations letters form a word with a certain meaning.

Why then do we think that at age 4 or 5 (or any age for that matter) we suddenly need to structure the way in which they learn language?

Why net let them discover language by themselves and let them fantasize what certain letters and even books mean? They will eventually figure it out by themselves. By keeping language and specifically reading a fun activity that promotes creativity and fantasy, kids (and later adults) will automatically be more motivated to keep reading and writing.