The Joy of Inefficiency: Teaching My Kids How to Read

Almost every morning this academic year, once the final remains of breakfast have been cleared away, I sit on the couch with my six-year-old daughter to read. Or, to be more precise, we practice spelling out and reading simple words from the trusty old McGuffey reader, popular in the 19th century. (When our pastor and his family came over for dinner a while back, he saw the readers on a shelf and exclaimed: “I saw these in a museum once!”)

This is the third child I am teaching to read, and the formula with each one has been generally the same: one-on-one time that adds up to hours over the course of years, spent reading aloud as we practice increasingly more challenging syllables, words, sentences, paragraphs—until the child takes off in earnest and can do this unassisted. Of course, this one-on-one time is in addition to time spent reading aloud with the entire family, or just to one or both kids still at home. Those other read-alouds take at least an hour—more often closer to two and sometimes more—every day. In other words, I spend close to 1,000 hours each year just reading to or with my kids. 

While my one-on-one time with each of my children has focused on teaching them to read, there is much more that also takes place in those hours spent together, such as attachment building.

In our modern world that greatly values efficiency, this kind of one-on-one method is the least efficient approach imaginable for doing practically anything. I think everyone at least subconsciously understands that. After all, there are a record number of apps, games, toys, devices, and shows for teaching kids to read. And then there is the entire elementary school modern industrial complex, a factory of knowledge that crams 20 to 30 children into a single room with just a teacher and a teacher’s aide (and, increasingly, a smart tablet per child), with the goals of teaching these same skills en masse that I have taught for each of my kids individually. 

Wouldn’t it be amazing if this worked? Just think of those thousand hours per year saved, allowing parents who might otherwise spend too much time just reading with their kids to maybe get a job or do something else that is more tangibly productive and contributes to the GDP. 

And on the surface, as we examine the typical elementary school approach to teaching reading, it sort of does work for many kids. Indeed, for most children, this approach clearly works just fine, although I will hazard to guess that these are mostly those whose parents also put in the hours at home for reading as well. In other words, the successful public-school students get taught at school, but then the parents, somehow, manage to put in almost as much time at home as I do with my kids. But for other children, the mass education process is not successful, and while intervention is available—this is what special education teachers do!—it is not universally successful. Every now and then, bombshell stories land of students who somehow managed to graduate from high school without ever learning to read. Thankfully, these are rare. More common is the grey zone into which huddles a large and ever-growing number of college-bound students today—the ones who possess basic literacy skills, but rarely if ever read entire books. In part, as I am convinced, because no one ever regularly read to and with them. 

And so, once we put it all together, the results should challenge our underlying assumptions as a modern society vis-à-vis both schooling and parenting—especially when it comes to the time parents spend with their kids. Let’s face it: my approach to teaching kids to read is the ultimate inefficiency project. But at the same time, where is educational efficiency getting us as a society of people not only uncomfortable with reading, but also lonely and isolated? What if we’ve been ignoring a key truth all along—that there are certain things in life that simply cannot be rushed without sacrificing something essential? Teaching kids to read is one small snapshot of this reality in action.

We must recognize an important truth: inefficiency is the key to good parenting. Children require a significant time investment from their parents to thrive and grow. But then, relationships with adults require no less significant time investment. Without it, all our relationships—whether with friends or family-members—only atrophy over time. Perhaps, in other words, we need to embrace that all our relationships with other people are two things that we generally consider contradictory: first, they are absolutely essential for human flourishing; and they are inefficiency projects. 

Let’s face it: my approach to teaching kids to read is the ultimate inefficiency project. But at the same time, where is educational efficiency getting us as a society?

Consider this: While my one-on-one time with each of my children has focused on teaching them to read, there is much more that also takes place in those hours spent together. First and foremost, there is closeness and attachment building. Regardless of where you stand on attachment parenting, research shows that small children need affection and loving touch from parents to build bonds and confidence—all to reinforce the knowledge and continuous reassurance that they are safe, secure, and loved. 

Because reading with my children involves that sort of affection—so much of time spent reading to and with small children is done with them cuddled on the parent’s lap—it is one of the ways that we have built a closer relationship. And so, here is a different yet related question: If there were a way to teach my children to read without putting in 1,000 hours per year (and over the course of multiple years), should I take it? What if they could learn to read just as well from all these different resources, many of them digital, that have flooded the market? What’s the difference, in other words, if my children were to spend these 1,000 hours per year with these digital resources or somewhere away from home rather than with me?

The answer is quite obvious but worth stating: The difference is that we wouldn’t be spending these 1,000 hours per year together. And then, of course, there is also the matter of reading: they wouldn’t be spending these 1,000 hours per year engaged in reading activities, although with this, at least, perhaps they could be spending these 1,000 hours engaged in other reading activities, elsewhere, and possibly with someone else. 

Ultimately, it is difficult to separate reading from relationships and the value of time—how we spend it and with whom. Yes, it is time spent so inefficiently, just holding this growing child on my lap and stewarding her love of books, learning, and family. Yet this time is a reminder that in a world of efficient machines, sometimes inefficiency is simply what it means to be truly, fully, and beautifully human.

Nadya Williams is a homeschooling mother, Managing Editor for Current, and the author of Cultural Christians in the Early Church, and Mothers, Children, and the Body Politic: Ancient Christianity and the Recovery of Human Dignity.