WOW, what a great kid you have there. And you know great kids come from great parents. Good job!!! I am trying really hard to be a family of reading. My daughter Genesis (9 years old) use to love to read, but now she dreads it. I keep getting books for her hoping that one will spark her interest. I’ve made it a requirement that she reads a chapter before getting online or TV. I just don’t want her to hate reading, which right now she does.
Any tips?

This is something that’s brought on a lot of thought and prayers for me over the years… years that I sure didn’t feel like I was doing a “good job”! This question of how to go about nurturing readers, especially when a child doesn’t seem very prone to reading on his own perplexed and intimidated me. Yes, I can honestly say that teaching our oldest son to read was like this big hurdle in my mind… I just knew that if I could get him reading well, the rest would come! It didn’t even occur to me then that he might not like reading much, once he’d learned. I too bought books that laid around unread for years before they were *discovered*, which yes, eventually… they have been!

OH! … and what an insurmountable task it seemed to me, looming before me like some mysterious quest that I didn’t know exactly how to embark upon, to teach my oldest child to read. I think the simplicity of it really eluded me… that teaching phonics, and then nurturing a genuine love for reading, isn’t really so difficult as I’d inadvertently built it up in my mind as being, and so in many ways discouraged myself before I’d hardly begun. That however, is the curse of a perfectionist, and I digress… Yes, this journey has definitely taught me as much as it’s taught my son, about perseverance. It really does simply take a little bit of consistent effort, and time set aside every day.

Our son was not always nearly so enthusiastic about reading as I was, nor as he is now, unlike his younger sister, who’s been a bibliophile from the time she was five and started reading on her own, stressing me out over on the opposite end of the spectrum because I hadn’t taught her those phonograms yet and she might get all mixed up!

Yes, with all of the fumbling, planning, worrying and learning that I’ve done over the years, I think that I’m finally starting to realize that my kids are learning not because of me, but rather in spite of me. Laughing… Seriously though, there are a few things that I do believe I’ve done right in the way of nurturing our up and coming readers, which may even warrant my passing along to you, and so I shall.

Nathan used to moan when I’d give him a book for required reading that seemed to him like it would require too much effort, or didn’t catch his attention immediately by way of its title and cover. Oh, how often I did fret over his seemingly delayed readiness to even learn how to read. And I emphasize seemingly because I soon learned that I was gauging his readiness by the wrong standards: I was judging where we were by my own preconceived expectations and self-imposed time-line, rather than by his…

I do believe that starting with a solid phonics program is the key to giving your children a strong reading start. However, at the same time, I also think that it’s important that we don’t rush them, forcing something before they’re ready. If we want our children to love reading, we should be sensitive to their readiness, because they will eventually be ready and want to learn!

We took it slow, beginning to learn basic phonics when he was six, and progressed steadily from there. Let’s just say that it was not his favorite thing to do, and so I persisted at an easy pace, sometimes only five minutes a day (per what I’d learned from my plethora of reading teacher materials), and eventually I turned it into game-time, which he responded most readily to (in second grade). That’s when it all begin to click for him…

Here is an excerpt from an article that encouraged me immensely in the earlier years, to relax… to pay more attention to him, than to my own fears of failing him.

Better Late than Early
An Excerpt from: Homeschooling for Success
How Parents can Create a Superior Education for their Child

For younger children, the emphasis is usually on building a solid foundation in reading, writing, and basic math. Where schools believe in starting formal learning as early as possible, most homeschoolers believe in delaying formal studies until the child is seven or older. This allows the child to mature physically and emotionally before she is asked to sit down and study.

Dr. Raymond Moore and his late wife, Dorothy Moore are probably the best-known advocates of the later-is-better approach. The Moores’ 1975 book Better Late Than Early summarizes research supporting their contention that children are not psychologically ready for formal learning until age eight to ten. They suggest that waiting allows children to gain the maturity and logical skills necessary for formal work and prevents them from becoming frustrated and discouraged by attempts to handle material they are simply not yet ready to understand.

It is quite common for homeschooled children, especially those using a flexible homeschooling approach, to learn to read as young as three or to delay until age eight or nine. This may seem like a shocking idea, but boys in particular are often not ready to read until they are seven or older, and they quickly catch up to the early readers.

Because of the individualized nature of homeschooling, late reading is not a handicap as it might be in a conventional school setting. Schools rely on text-based instruction, but “late” readers at home simply learn through other means, like watching educational TV and videos, asking questions, and observing the world around them. Also, since the child is not labeled as “slow” or put into the slow reading group, their self-confidence and self-esteem does not suffer. The child will grow into an enthusiastic reader, and thus view reading not only as a tool for obtaining knowledge or keeping up with others but as an enjoyable activity.

Raising a lifelong reader is very different from just teaching a child to read. Approximately twenty million people in the United States can’t read. Another estimated 40 million read at a fourth-grade level. While these are unacceptable numbers, there is another reading epidemic in this country. We’re a nation of “alliterates’”, which means we know how to read but we don’t read. A 1999 survey showed that only 45 percent of citizens read more than a half-hour every day—that would include all reading from fiction to newspapers to work-related materials. While the two hours of television the average American watches each day factors in here, could our nation’s lack of interest in reading have something to do with the way we are taught to read in school? Is it because we assign reading (instead of letting the child choose) and require book reports? Book reports in the second grade? Record numbers of children are forced to read before they are developmentally ready. Thus, reading continues to be an unpleasant experience for most of their school career. Unless a reading problem is involved children learn to read when they are ready. It is developmental and not synchronized to meet an educator’s timetable.

The best advice is to teach your child to read when they are ready, regardless of how young or old they may be. {emphasis mine.} Reading specialists have observed that children display certain behaviors when  they are read to read.

Click here to read the rest: Better Late than Early: An Excerpt from: Homeschooling for Success, How Parents can Create a Superior Education for their Child

Also see: Better Late Than Early: A New Approach to Your Child’s Education

I won’t bore you (well, not in this post anyways) with a list of all of the reading curricula that I read for my own edification, some of which I then *used* on him as I designed my own eclectic reading program! However, I will share with you what I think nurtured him along the most regarding his going beyond merely learning how to read, to his eventually becoming a real READER: someone who picks up a good, living book, of his own volition, and reads for his own pleasure and edification… often. {Oh, GLORY day!} This didn’t happen really until he was about 11 years old. Don’t get me wrong, he’d read a few good chapter books before then, but only because I’d required it.

I’ll never forget the day that Nathan actually thanked me for making him read a chapter book on his own, which “turned out to be interesting, after all”, but only after he’d done a lot of grumbling before starting it. Imagine that?! This was also when he got his “don’t judge a book by its cover” lecture. Good times!

He was nine, turning ten years old that year. That was also the year that I started having him read a harder, more challenging book aloud to me regularly as well (both were required reading for our AO, Year 3 program). Actually, we took turns reading it, and it was divided into short portions, scheduled out over a period of many weeks, which kept us both plugging away at it together, without being overwhelmed. That was all that I required of him though at that time, reading-wise, besides some short, regular poetry readings, and occasional read-aloud sessions from his McGuffey, both of which he actually loved! Over the years, he’s learned to trust my selection of books, and isn’t so quick to snub a book I require or merely suggest.

I will say that besides the Moores, the writings of Dr. Ruth Beechick and Charlotte Mason offered me the greatest encouragment regarding the teaching (or rather, facilitating of) reading at the time. Now I’d like to offer a few tips for nurturing your own readers, much of which I think is somewhat intuitive.

The worth of a book is to be measured by what you can carry away from it.  ~James Bryce

Nurturing Readers~ Some tips from our Reading House to Yours!

• Make reading to your children often a priority, from the time they’re babes, even on into their teens. Be selective with this reading time, choosing quality, living books full of great ideas, worthy of your child’s imagination and ever growing curiosity regarding their world.

• Make a point of incoorperating narrations into your daily reading routines early-on, and continue as the years progress. This, in our experience, has been an area that easily gets neglected. Every day, we begin again… I have fond memories of Nathan and Tabitha spontaneously planning and reenacting quite a few tales with their stuffed animals. There are so many creative ways to include narrations in one’s reading routines. Narrations often happen naturally as my kids’ enthusiasm for something they’re reading about just spills over naturally, and they want to tell me all about it. I’m often having to consciously set what I’m doing aside to tune myself into what they’re saying. These spontaneous narrations often will then turn into great discussions too!
• Require fifteen, then twenty, and eventually thirty minutes of comfortable (reading level-wise) silent reading each day, from a book that’s part of your “studies”, literature supplemental to your history studies maybe (what we call our “school books”- which are simply the ones I’ve scheduled). Now that they’re older, my kiddos read more, but this was a good starting point in their early elementary years. Practice, practice, practice… a little bit each day, just like the phonics lessons that got them there.
• Require your children to read aloud to you each day as well. I cannot overstate the value of this discipline enough. It’s not only provided hours of wonderful memories for us, but also allows me to hear what we need to work on, clarify phonetic mispronunciations and gives your children needed practice with enunciation and elocution, an invaluable skill.
  
• Be patient. Continue to read good books to them, even once they’re reading fluently on their own. Keep your shelves stocked and tables strewn with more of the same, and they will read… when they’re ready, what they want to (along with a few things you’ve *suggested*, or required via their other studies, to challenge them).
• Be a discerning reader yourself. They will learn by seeing you, and eventually will emulate you and will even want to read what you’re reading- just last week Nathan asked me if he could read my book when I was finished. He’s also forever reading news and geo-political stuff over his Dad’s shoulder. Get yourself some good book lists to refer to over the years, as you make purchases, create a PBS wishlist, or go to the library. I had to learn what books I was even looking for, since my own education (unfortunately) didn’t include much in the way of good literature. I’ll include some of my favorites at the end of this post.
• Provide plenty of *easy* books for them to read, along with magazines, with lots of engaging pictures. These will nurture that symbiotic relationship that’s just beginning between your children and their books early on. I must admit that though we avoid it for the most part, I’ve even allowed a bit of twaddle over the years (Magic Tree House series comes to mind here- I think the kids checked every single one of those out from the library one summer), as well as some of those Illustrated Classics. Catherine Levison has a great article here defining twaddle, which is the literary equivalent to junk food, and you want to avoid, for the most part. My son read and re-read a huge collection of Ranger Rick mags that a friend’s daughter had given us. I remember him piling a new stack of these well-read, falling apart magazines on our bed each evening… Nathan has also LOVED the Usborne World History and Time Traveller books, BIG time, and has read them front to back many times over the years! Last year he devoured Oxford’s First Ancient History, which we’d bought him as a gift, seeing as it was a step-up from the Usborne history books that he’d loved so much. He’s also enjoyed Hakim’s History of US series, which we’ve gradually attained via paperbackswap.com, and has led to some interesting discussions. Nathan will often choose history books for his evening free-reading time, and it has been a joy to see this interest of his grow and blossom over the years. His other all-time favorites have been our myriad collection of picture Bibles. In the last couple of months I have been thrilled to find him snuggled in bed with his grown-up NIV, “reading about David”! It was really hard to tell him “lights out” those nights.

• Allow your children an extra 30 mins. to an hour of time after “bed-time” to sit up and read, before “lights-out” time. It works! Our kids have been doing this for years, and it’s become a very important time to them. It’s also a time that Dad will often snuggle and read to them, or myself, once the baby’s in bed. I’ve also allowed them to do drawing or copy-work (yes, per their request) during this “quiet reading time”. Since Chris and I usually stay up well after they’ve gone to sleep, we’ve often allowed this time to be in our “big bed”, which enabled Nathan and Tabitha to be together, and facilitates snuggling so well. One year we read through The Chronicles of Narnia together, a chapter or two a night. It all started when I announced that we had to read the book before going to see the movie, The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe when it came out in theatres. Once we finished that first one, the kids just wanted me to keep going. Now that they’re older though, and their baby sister is sleeping in our room, this time is spent in their own bedrooms. Everything in it’s time. You will find what works best for your family.

• Don’t over do it. Remember that you want them to enjoy reading. Less really can be more, in the long run. If your children seem sincerely overwhelmed, lighten their load a little bit, so long as you’re confident they are putting forth their best efforts. That’s all that matters, that they’re learning, growing… paces will vary.
  
• Help them find good books (and/or articles online even) about topics that interest them.

• Don’t be afraid to tell them no, and make them wait for some books. I did this with The Hobbit, a book that Nathan wanted to read for years before I’d let him, before he was ready. The cover jacket of this book tantalized him to no end, and the inadvertent anticipation this created was worth its weight and wait in gold. When I did finally relent, a couple of months before he turned twelve, he gobbled it up within three weeks, over our winter break, right before starting the LOTR trilogy. Yes, I’ll never forget that holiday break, when I did the homeschool-mama-happy-dance all around the house, while he spent the month immersed in mature books, of his own volition, and *off* from school-work. Now, he’s reading The Hobbit again (per his own request) at a much slower pace, as it’s scheduled into his weekly AO readings.
• Allow them to take their school-work/reading books outside. A change of pace is always nice, and the outdoors invigorating… especially when one has good company.
  

• Get an iPod and load it with lots of great audio books! We’ve done this for the last couple of years, and it’s been such a blessing, not only in catching my slack (having had a baby has really cut into our read-aloud time!), but in providing constructive listening time on long road trips, or as a reading aid for more difficult books. Librivox.org is my favorite place to download free podcasts (chapters) from. We’ve found many of our schoolbooks (classics, in the public domain) available there.

• Siblings reading to each other and even helping with the teaching is also a great reading encourager. How blessed I’ve been to awaken in the mornings to find my son reading to his younger sister, all quiet and snuggly in his room. These are wonderful, precious times and my two older ones are already anxiously working with reading to our toddler!
• Watching the movie made from a book is always a treat around here too. My kids love to critique movies according to their books! Recently they were very impressed by a documentary that we watched, “Exodus Revealed” which incoorperated a lot of archaeology verifying the Israelites’ being in Egypt and their Exodus, which we’d just been reading aloud about again. They were fascinated! We watch a lot of documentaries around here, and I highly recommend Netflix as a great educational supplement. We supplement much of our history and literature readings with great movies.
• Last, but certainly not least, is the fundamental importance of LIMITing screen-time for your kids! At our house, this “screen-time” includes tv, computer and video-games time . In the past this has been fairly simple for us, since we haven’t owned any gaming devices, besides a few educational pc games, and our *vintage* atari game(s) that Chris bought off of ebay years ago. This will be changing soon though, since the kids’ major gifts year will be gaming devices. Yikes! We’ve limited screen-time to the point that it’s just an understood fact of life around here, and will remain so even (especially) once they get their new gaming devices. Chris and I are looking forward to all of the many educational aspects of the gaming world too. We haven’t had cable tv either, except for a year that it was necessary for our high-speed internet connection, and then they had to ask permission to watch certain shows, didn’t have free-reign of the remote, and tv time was limited. Period. They have a set amount of computer time to use each week, and we have a system where they sign in and sign out, so as to keep track of time they’ve used online. Thus, when our kids get “bored”, or have down-time, they often reach for books, rather than vegging out in front of a screen… It’s worked for us. Just last night Nathan was wanting to start a movie at 10:00, and I said “no, it’s too late, but you can read…” So he chose to start the book he’s “been meaning to read for awhile now”, The Swiss Family Robinson, and is immersed in it today, grabbed it and snuggled up on the couch first thing this morning. Thoughtfully placed boundaries are beneficial for our children.

I do hope and pray that you are encouraged! Even as I did these (mostly mundane) things that I’ve listed, and we plugged away little by little with our humble reading routines over the earlier years, I often felt defeated and discouraged, like I wasn’t doing enough… However, now that my older children are ten and thirteen year-olds who relish reading, I can see that it was all just a matter of t.i.m.e., and their being individuals who progress at their own rate, in their own time. There is no formula, because homeschooling is living and learning together, daily. We are not educating with a cookie-cutter mentality, therefore I do believe that the reading journey’s dynamics will be a bit different for each family, and even with every child within that family… naturally.

Book Lists from which to glean~

1. Ambleside Online (see book lists under each year)
   
2. 1000 Good Books List
3. Simply Charlotte Mason
   
4. TruthQuest History
5. Twaddle-Free Literature by Grade Level
6. A Book in Time
   
7. Sonlight
8. Veritas Press

And lastly, I’d like to leave you with a little nugget of advice from my 13 year old homeschooled kiddo, when asked during his interview what changes he might suggest to homeschool teachers,

I think a lot of parents over stress themselves, thinking they have to be up to standards or up above public schooling when they first begin home schooling because they hear that home schooling is better. This makes it to where there is too much stress when they try to teach just like a public school. That is the glory of home schooling because that most of the time the student gets to choose some of his or her assignments and subjects for the day, to have input.

So, there you have it folks… Relax, read with your kids, and enjoy the adventure, since it’s every baby step along the way that will get you there!

There is a great deal of difference between an eager man who wants to read a book and a tired man who wants a book to read.  ~G.K. Chesterton

Please share with us what you’ve done to nurture your own readers and any tips you’ve picked up along the way in creating a reading house within your own home.

Embracing the adventure,

A lovely photo journal of what looks like an incredible educational trip over at Growing Urban Wildflowers:
“…or, there and back again”

A great post about a duck and a boy over at Life-Led-Learning: Wild Duck Rescue

A review of a book series that I have never read but which we will definitely be checking out at Seeds and Dreams: Why We Love Gregor the Overlander

And a continuation of the discussion of Children’s Church over at Crunchy Christian Mom:
Children and church

And finally a great general unschooling article that I found to be an excellent reminder of how to keep the spark of interest alive: keeping the cart behind the horse

I realized after we got home that I was a bit self-centered in my book collecting. Where are all the books for the kids?! Maybe it’s because I’m still getting used to the idea that my boys are turning into readers!

I was a pretty confident unschooler when we started this homeschooling journey. It helped that UberDad and I were both early readers. We figured it out before starting school, so why couldn’t our kids learn to read without school?

At the same time, I didn’t expect that they’d be early readers just because we were. For one thing, my parents didn’t have money for a lot of toys, but we went to the library frequently. And my mother was fond of flashcards. We didn’t have a television until I’d already read the “Little House” series.

I didn’t want television around here either, but that turned out to be hopeless. Let’s just say I’m still working on my boundary issues — and my mother’s incredibly generous. Plus Eldest is a visual/auditory learner who soaks up everything he can learn from cable. Despite my own love for learning via text on a page, I don’t believe it’s the only way to learn.

And despite the fact that our tv sees plenty of use, our kids are also surrounded by books at home, and have spent a fair amount of time in bookstores and the library, and of course, being read to.

I knew it was only a matter of time before they’d begin reading on their own. If I’d been worried or in a hurry, we would have spent less time on field trips and at the park, and more time on the couch. But I wasn’t — and my boys like to get out and DO.

Not that I never wondered if I should be doing more. I know people who swear by using 100 Easy Lessons. (I borrowed it once, and got through two lessons before we were all bored.) And ZooPhonics sounds so fun and creative! (But you can buy a lot of books for $400.)

But when I prayed about it, I always got the same answer:

Commit your way to the LORD; trust in him and he will do this(.)
–Psalm 37:5

So I stuck with just answering their questions, and reading to them as often as our schedule allowed. I buy plenty of books, but no programs.

It has been a fascinating journey to watch. Eldest has been blessed with an incredible memory, and he prefers to memorize what words look like, using context, phonics (or just asking me) to figure them out first. He reads with beautiful inflection, but he’s not crazy about sounding out longer words himself. He remembers faster from hearing me say it.

Middlest uses mostly phonics, and isn’t intimidated by larger words. He reads more slowly because he’s not sight-reading as much — and because he wants to read harder books, not the “easy-to-read” stuff.

After reading a couple Dr. Suess books with help in March, he decided he wanted to read “The Tale of Despereaux.” A friend gave him a copy for Christmas, and he wanted to read it himself.

So, we started reading it together, one paragraph at a time because that was enough for him. He needed a lot of help, but in just TWO PAGES — over the span of a week, his reading improved significantly. All that exposure to bigger words built up his phonics skills and gave him great confidence. It’s not the only thing we’re reading, so I can see how much better he’s getting at the easy stuff.

Last week, while I was horizontal on the couch, the boys took turns reading aloud to me and to each other. Eldest was so excited to be able to read his favorite Captain Underpants books himself.

“Reading is my new very favorite thing to do!” he said to me one afternoon.

And my heart leapt.

It works! It really works! I haven’t messed up my children’s chance to learn to read! I haven’t missed any “window of opportunity.”

They’ve also escaped being labeled “learning disabled” because they preferred to play outside than sit still and listen to lessons at age five. They’ve learned without pressure, in their own way, and in their own time.

And they can still be bibliophiles like their parents! For this, I am truly grateful.

The Arrival is a beautifully illustrated, wordless, allegorical, graphic novel. It is the story of an immigrant who leaves his family to find a better place for a new world.   Shaun Tan uses timing and amazing images to demonstrate to the reader/onlooker what it felt like for various people coming to a new country for the first time, especially those seeking to escape something in their old country.  The illustrations are amazing and awe-inspiring, with invented creatures, building shapes, foods, and machines.

Definitely a great book to have on hand.  Enjoyable for all ages -even pre- readers can tell the story and practice left to right progression and older kids can enjoy the amazing art work and get a real feel for what it felt like for immigrants coming to America for the first time.

For my children, this book required some discussion of context and from there the children where able to grasp what the author was saying.  It is a great book to look at and discuss together, havng the kids explain what they think is going on in each image.

Prior knowledge helpful (but not necessary) when perusing this book:

• Why people leave their home country for a new one.
• Recognition of cultural differences of food, clothing, how things are done, etc.
• Immigration process.

“There are many practical and scholarly homeschooling resources…

Around Zine is not one of them.”

I haven’t managed to get a hold of a copy yet but will as soon as possible (and will give a review when I do).  In the meantime you can check it out here and order a copy here.

WRITING IS NOT HARD. Writing is communicating. If you can think, you can write.

So why do home schoolers spend so much money on writing curriculum and give writing assignments starting in first grade and worry that their kids don’t write enough? Probably because the home schooling parent went to traditional school and that’s what they went through, or because that expensive curriculum I just bought says we have to, that’s why.

It’s hard to imagine a world where eight-year-olds are not asked to find the topic sentence of a paragraph or where 12 year-olds are not asked to write book reports. What would become of our youth?

Abraham Lincoln lived in that kind of world. He only spent a few months in a traditional school setting. The rest of his childhood was spent in search of time to read, and no one asked him to write anything. In fact, he didn’t have paper. He would write in the dirt or scratch on wood. As a farmer, he had time to think about his readings as he plowed fields or chopped wood, but he never wrote a summary or an analysis of his readings. He didn’t even take notes.

When he moved away from home, Lincoln became a store clerk and had plenty of time to read behind the counter. When a family moving West had to lighten their load, he bought a barrel full of their belongings. “I found at the bottom of the rubbish a complete edition of Blackstone’s Commentaries. I began to read those famous works, and I had plenty of time; for during the long summer days, when the farmers were busy with their crops, my customers were few and far between. The more I read, the more intensely interested I became. Never in my whole life was my mind so thoroughly absorbed. I read until I devoured them.” source

That’s how Abraham Lincoln became a lawyer. He read, studied what interested him, and passed the bar exam. Without traditional education he became one of the most eloquent, influential communicators in American history. He never took a speech-writing class, yet the Gettysburg Address and his Second Inaugural Address are among the best speeches ever delivered (and yes, he wrote his own speeches).

But could he write a five paragraph essay? Argh! I’ll have more on that topic in a future post.

Here are some specifics for today’s student:

1. Let them read.
2. Let them think and express opinions about what they read.
3. Respect their opinions and insights so they will feel the freedom to talk honestly with you.
4. Share your own insights and wonder at a writer’s ability to communicate.
5. Don’t kill the fun of writing by pointing out spelling or grammar mistakes all the time.

Here’s what we did.

At the age of six or seven, Peter began reading the Boxcar Children Series over and over again. I had to remind myself that even if these weren’t Dickens, he was at least being exposed to correct spelling, punctuation and grammar. At one point he told me that on the second or third reading he started to notice how the writer was laying out the story, foreshadowing, and creating suspense. This is a good thing to remember: On the first read you are engrossed in the story; on subsequent readings you can be more detached and notice the craft. He even noticed how quotations were organized so that each new speaker had his own line–pretty sophisticated stuff for a young reader to discover on his own. If you think your child isn’t picking up on these things, you could casually point them out, especially if you are reading out loud to him. But keep comments minimally invasive or you’ll kill the joy of reading.

As your child is reading books that interest him, allow him to respond naturally. He may want to talk about it, write about it, act it out, find more information, who knows! Then he will find more books and websites and have more responses. This can go on for years.

Encourage creative writing by suggesting your child write his own book. Or if he likes to create imaginary worlds, give him a little journal to chronicle his adventures. Melissa had dog stories going on for awhile. She liked to type them into the computer and work on them with friends. At one point, she created a newspaper that reported on happenings around the house, including an advice column and comics.

Meg was a late reader, but she loved to listen to books, and we did a lot of that (Little House on the Prairie, Chronicles of Narnia, The Borrowers, etc). Around the age of 10, she started reading on her own, and with very little instruction, her spelling and grammar are up to grade level just from the exposure she gets from her books.

In 8th grade, take stock of your child’s knowledge of grammar, especially if you have not been taking standardized tests all along.* And by the way, I would not recommend taking standardized tests if you don’t have to. They could traumatize some kids and they just aren’t necessary.

How do you assess your kids in the area of mechanics? Check out EnglishChick.com. She has a great grammar basics section and links to other sites, including a free assessment with online lessons. To check your child’s knowledge in the least threatening way, just read over the basics page together, or do the assessment together and see what areas are weak. I also like the Online Writing Lab from Purdue University. They are concise and have a nice list of topics to choose from. EdHelper.com has free worksheets on various grammar topics if your child wants to try those. And my all-time favorite book on English mechanics is Woe is I by Patricia T. O’Connor.

For high school, encourage your child to continue reading great books and allow plenty of opportunity to research whatever interests him. If your child needs some help finding things to read, I highly recommend Invitation to the Classics. It gives short background information on the most respected authors through time, discussion of some of their most important works, along with some questions for thought. Your child could start reading through this book until she comes upon a piece of literature that sounds interesting, then find it at the library. Or you and he could be reading the same thing so you can have the fun of discussing it. This is a great guide to help you find wonderful things to read.

You could give writing assignments, but I wouldn’t unless the child really wants one. Melissa used to do this to me. In junior high she’d ask me to give her a research assignment. She tended to do reports about animals. I’d tell her what types of things she might want to find and she’d come up with her own way to present it, complete with pictures she found on the Internet.

One year during high school, Peter and I met with another home schooled student and tried to do a more formal type of literature class. It was fun to have a time set aside once a week to do that, but it really helped the other girl more than Peter. He found the writing assignments easy because he likes to read and talk about what he reads. And after all, that’s what makes a good writer–someone who can think and communicate logically. I spent most of my time trying to help the other child who’d been very traditionally schooled at home all her life.

The first semester of his senior year, Peter took a composition class at our local community college. We decided to do that so he could prove to himself and colleges that he could write. Unfortunately, it was mostly a waste of money. They had him writing essays (yes, the old five paragraph essay) on different topics. He got A’s on all of them and I hear now his essays are used as examples in the class. Now he’s completing his first quarter at the University of Chicago. He gets A’s on his papers and at least one teacher used his paper as an example for the rest of the class. His friends wonder how he can be such a good writer when he’s been homeschooled–meaning he was never subjected to hours of writing instruction and practice. Maybe that’s the key.

If your child will take the SAT or the ACT, you need to teach them about the five paragraph essay. I will have a thorough discussion of that coming soon. But instead of teaching that topic ad nauseam for years, start about four weeks before the test to allow time to practice a few.

Home School Meets Public School in English Class

Recently Melissa told me about her high school freshman English class (she decided to try public school this year). They are learning how to write summaries. I just roll my eyes and think what a waste of time for those poor kids. Human beings can summarize without instruction, thank you. We do it all the time.

A few weeks ago they started learning how to write the five paragraph essay. If you haven’t noticed by now, I have strong opinions about this traditional way to teach writing, and I can’t wait to get some time to dive into it. But even worse than the fact that high school freshman are learning how to write the five paragraph essay, the teacher told them they wouldn’t be writing a persuasive essay until next year because they just “aren’t mature enough yet.” Excuse me? How many eight-year-olds can present persuasive arguments, especially now, around Christmas time?

For the first time in her life, Melissa is taking notes on a book she’s reading. She has discovered that the purpose of the note cards is to prove they are actually reading the books. Yes, the joys of institutional education. At various points in the unit, each child has to stand in front of the class and talk about the notes they are taking. Melissa did hers yesterday. I asked her how she did. “Fine. I always get full credit for things.”

“How did the other kids do?” I asked.

“Terrible! It’s amazing how no one can talk. The teacher has to pull things out of them and they just mumble.”

But wait, these kids have been in a classroom since they were five years old, becoming magically socialized and learning such wonderful things! And here the child who spent her elementary years “in the wild” can actually talk and write about things she’s learning.

Be assured, the freedom to read and think and follow his interests will make your child a natural, effective communicator.

*If you live in an area where your kids have to prove some sort of “competency” for the “experts,” find out what exactly they are looking for and be sure your kids can do those things at a passing level. Scores on standardized tests in the elementary grades mean nothing to colleges. If, however, you plan to send them to a private high school, it might be a good idea to check ahead of time if those schools will use your elementary scores to determine admission or scholarships. Even if you have to “teach to the tests,” you can probably cover what they need to know in just a few days if the rest of the time has been rich in reading and discovery.

First of all, thank you for the question. I LOVE questions, because it helps me know what to write about. My kids did go through spurts in doing school-type things and that would make me feel better, but that didn’t mean they weren’t learning the other times too. Some days were just watching PBS or playing dress-up. I’d get nervous and try to whip up some school-like activity, but really, that’s not necessary. That’s me trying to control the learning that’s going on all the time anyway.

On days I felt compelled to do some “real” learning, a trip to the library would do the trick. Browse the shelves and let the kids bring home whatever they are interested in. Since mom gets to bring home books too, I’d think through topics I thought they should know about. I’d get ideas from a book called The Core Knowledge Sequence.It’s a list of what kids in each grade are supposedly learning. This is all theoretical because we don’t have a nationalized curriculum, and I don’t believe education is “filling a bucket” anyway, but it was helpful to be reminded that kids in 3rd grade probably know all about the Pilgrims and Plymouth Rock. Why not get Who’s That Stepping on Plymouth Rock?I love everything by Jean Fritz. Read aloud time with her booksbecomes a whole elementary school history curriculum!

I also like Kathryn Stout’s Design-a-Study series. It’s the same idea as the Core Knowledge Sequence because it has content listed by grade level, but it has more suggestions on how to teach the different areas. I like both these resources because they cover all of elementary school in one shot. The books might look expensive, but think “eight years of schooling.”

Some Specifics on Fostering Interest

When one of my kids was in early elementary school I thought she should know about the periodic table of elements. So I set up a lab with a big periodic table poster, science lab materials, experiment books, and one of her dad’s white shirts as a lab coat. Then I left it to see what would happen. She spent a lot of time in there and learned a great deal (it was actually set up under her loft bed). And when she lost interest, we put it all away.

That science lab was really a learning center. These are simply table tops or plastic tubs or drawers that have everything you need to dive into your topic. We still have the dress-up chest and the drawing desk. But you can be more specific and have a rocket science corner with library books, toys, videos, Lego’s, or whatever you think you need to introduce and explore that topic. A geography area would have a globe, map, workbooks, map puzzle, etc. These are simply little places of hidden treasure. And when they are no longer interesting, put them away and try something else. The goal is to learn about your child and what he loves, then provide what he needs to go that route to the fullest.

I always had a read-aloud book going at bedtime, and I’d purposefully choose books to follow some historic period. I also had a time line going around the bedroom, so when we read, I could point to the spot on the time line and if they wanted, they could write or draw what they learned on it. I usually found some sort of visual for them to attach too.

Mom’s enthusiasm can go a long way in fostering interest in something. I personally love biology, so one of my favorite memories is doing The Body Book.The book’s description says, “easy-to-make hands-on models that teach.” You make card stock copies of the skeleton and organs, and with some scissors and tape you have a model of the human body. We did various parts of this book over several years. The kids loved it too since it was like doing crafts with mom.

In a nutshell, remember your main job is to foster a love of learning and their natural talents. If you have to resort to threats or yelling to get them to “do school,” you should just let it be. If your child would love to do workbooks all day, let her. If your child is emotionally mature and wants to go to public school, let her (gulp. That’s my situation now). If your child wants to play video games all day, let him. Seriously. If he sees you’re not hassling him, the fun will die away soon enough and his natural survival instincts will kick in, like maybe when he’s 16 and has to get into some college. But let’s hope he’s had something to spark his interest before then!

A View from the Down the Road

Yesterday Melissa came home from her third day of public high school and commented about her English class. She said, “It must be hard for some kids to write stories. What if you’re not creative? Anyone can learn grammar or punctuation, but how can you learn creativity?” I told her I was glad she had all those stress-free elementary years to play, pretend, make up stories and develop her imagination.

Meg, my learn-at-home high school junior just finished watching a Netflix instant documentary and was disappointed. “I didn’t really learn anything. I think I’ll try to find something educational to do,” she says as I sit here typing this.

My homeschool graduate has another month until he leaves for college (they are on the quarter system). He just ordered The Brothers Karamazov, an 800 page Russian novel, because he’s listening to online lectures from the UC Berkeley that talk about it. Is this how most graduated seniors spend their last weeks before college?

And 90% of their lives has been unstructured and interest-led.

Have hope.