How My 7-Year-Old Learned to Read (Without Me Teaching Him) #40

The Whole Parent Podcast

My oldest son couldn’t read at seven. And me? I was writing a parenting book for a major publisher. Being asked to speak to thousands of parents. Teaching emotional development, brain-based learning, and motivation. The irony wasn’t lost on me.

In this episode, I tells the vulnerable and surprising story of how we stopped trying to teach how to read, and started teaching why to read instead. What happened next wasn’t magic. It was science, patience, and a little bit of kiwi bird trivia.

Along the way, I share:

• Why panic over “late readers” is often just parental shark music
• The real reason traditional reading instruction fails so many kids
• What it looked like to let go of benchmarks and trust the process
• How a graphic novel cracked everything open
• And why motivation, not instruction, is the foundation of literacy

If you’ve ever worried your child is falling behind… this episode is a deep breath. Not because everything resolves perfectly. But because it reminds you what matters most.

“I don’t think we have a how problem in education. I think we have a why problem.”

🎧 Listen now for the story, the science, and the shift that changed everything.

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1. The Anxiety of My Non-Reading Child (00:00:00)

2. The Shark Music Phenomenon (00:00:56)

3. Abandoning Traditional Reading Methods (00:03:20)

4. The Kiwi Bird Breakthrough (00:05:34)

5. Dogman: The Reading Revolution (00:10:33)

6. My Own Reading Disability Journey (00:12:34)

7. The Why Problem in Education (00:15:04)