You can un-school, de-school, or home school. There are other styles of home education, but those are a good basic three to being with. You’ll find information on the three within GoodByeCityLife. If you need to, ask questions in the comment form below.

Once you’ve decided on a style of education, craft a mission statement or plan of action. Now is the time to set certain ground rules and commit them to paper. Home schooling requires a lot of self-discipline. Having goals set to paper, no matter how lenient, help to keep the focus. Personal traits required for teacher and student are: an eagerness to learn, hard work and effort, discipline, time, patience, flexibility and an enthusiasm for sharing knowledge.

In your mission statement you might also want to record your motives, goals and reasons to home school your child. Don’t forget to get input from your sons or daughters and review your statement every few months to make sure you are on track.

Set Up Your Proposed Schedule

How many hours, how often, and on which days? Flexibility is one of the key underlying principles behind homeschooling, but 70% of humans thrive on schedules so this may be a concern for you and your home schooled child. It is only natural that parents, especially in the beginning, feel that their children should be at their books at the time that regular students are in school. That ‘feeling’ is the opposite of home schooling and can be counter-productive.

One of the most ignored but glaring drawbacks of the public schooling system is the sheer waste of time and energy that it promotes. Many periods are simply wasted away and the child effectively derives only 1-3 hours of study per day. There are days when the studies become too intense and other days when no work is performed at all. There is a lot of ‘invisible waste’ of hours in the public school system.

Not so with home schooling. There will be ample time for other activities or bonding time. Time spent actually preparing your child for real life. Not the boredom of a classroom.

Stick to your schedule for a few weeks, then reassess and rewrite if necessary.

The actual number of hours that you need depends on the curriculum you have chosen and the learning style that suits your child. If you are dealing with a subject that is more complex, you may need to sit with the child for a longer period. Using various techniques, it may be necessary to demonstrate what you are trying to teach. For instance, a difficult math lesson may take more time than the equivalent lesson in English.

Given the fact that too many public school hours are wasted in meaningless activities (waiting), extra-curricular activities that your child has no interest in, and ultimately boredom – do not allow public school hours to dictate the hours you’ll spend teaching your child at home. At home, he is getting high-quality, one-on-one lessons that are highly productive. About 1-3 hours of study is a good place to start in the primary grades, but let you child decide if he’d like to do more. The more enjoyable hours you put in, the more learning takes place.

Your child does not have to learn seven hours a day. Allow him to dictate the time after you’ve met your minimum. Flexibility and fun are the cornerstones of homeschooling. Do not stuff too many skills into a single term or year.

Homeschooling does not stop at lectures, books and tests. Field trips, documentaries on television, day to day life such as shopping and banking, and libraries also make up an important slice of the home schooling process – all of which has educational value. It makes sense to intersperse these activities so that learning becomes fun. You may want to finish off the few hours of textbook learning in the morning and dedicate the afternoons to these kinds of activities.

Compassionate and intuitive parenting is truly the secret to homeschooling success. Children make great advances in learning and show more enthusiasm when they are being led by love and respect. They also turn out to be surprisingly well balanced and well informed when they are taught at home.

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• Top Four Home Schooling Styles
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There are many different methods and styles of home schooling. The method you choose will decide the curriculum and allotment of lessons for each day.

Below we explore some of the more widely used and influential home schooling styles.

Charlotte Mason Method

Charlotte Mason is known as the founder of the home schooling movement. A home schooler herself, she was passionate in her zeal to lay out the foundations for an effective and complete home schooling program that is fun and educational at the same time. The Mason Method focuses on all the core subjects with emphasis placed on classical literature, poetry, fine arts, classical music and crafts.

Mason used a variety of books from classical literature, which she called ‘Living Books’. Since this method encourages a passionate awareness of literature, the child is read to daily from the ‘Living Books’. After this, the child is asked to narrate what she has heard. This process begins at the age of six, and by ten the child is expected to write her narrations in her book.

Mason believed that development of good character and behavior was essential to the complete development of the child’s personality. Mason also advocated the use of ‘Nature Diaries’. After each short and interesting lesson, the child is asked to go outside and draw observations from their natural surroundings. Through this the home schooled child gains a sense of respect for her environment.

Eclectic Home Schooling

Eclectic home schooling is a mixture of various home schooling styles and techniques. In this style, creative and innovative parents trust their own judgment and pick out topics and study methods that make the best curriculum, not by governmental standards, but for each child individually.

Parents who home school this way are continuously on the look out for the best products to meet the needs of their students. Most Eclectic home schooling curriculums are improvised. Basic curriculum is ready-made and parents make changes in the curriculum to accommodate the individual child’s needs and interests.

The child’s gifts, talents, temperaments, and learning style dictate the methods and subjects taught. Eclectic programs include visits to the museum, libraries and factories, and cover all aspects of day to day life and responsibility.

Un-schooling Home Schooling

Although it seems a contradiction in terms, un-schooling is a very popular and authentic educational style. The Un-Schooling method was led by Boston public educator, John Holt. John Holt believed that children learned best when they are free to learn at their own pace and when they are guided by their own interests. His message to educators and parents was to ‘unschool‘ a child.

This method is a hands-on approach to learning, where the parent takes definite cues from their students. There is no definite curriculum, schedules or materials. This method is the most unstructured of the various home schooling techniques, but has seen some of the biggest success stories.

The Montessori Method of Home Schooling

If you hadn’t heard of home schooling until today, chances are good that you have at least heard of Montessori. Developed from the work of Dr. Maria Montessori, this style of teaching aims at duplicating natural laws that a child faces in life.

The Montessori method of teaching is especially suitable to the preschooler who wants to do everything by himself. Finding ways in which your child can participate in the cleaning, washing, cooking, gardening and other ‘adult’ activities sets the perfect backdrop for the learning experience. By providing such opportunities for independence, the child’s self-esteem is also well established.

This educational method began in Italy, when it was observed that children have acute sensitive periods, during which they undergo periods of intense concentration. During such phases, a child will repeat an activity till he gains a measure of self-satisfaction.

The aim of the Montessori teacher is to control the environment and not the child. Studies of children resulted in observation that children who are left free to interact with their environment developed an innate self-discipline, love for order and natural curiosity.

The Montessori method depends on a prepared environment to facilitate learning. All the materials used in this method are designed to satisfy the inner desire for spiritual development of the child. The materials used progress from simple to complex, and are rather expensive.

Artistic, cultural and scientific activities abound in the Montessori 3-6 class. There is no TV, junk food, or computer. Material is selected carefully and a child is never forced to work, instead the students are encouraged to do things that interest them, and the teacher picks up the teaching from cues given by the child.

The Montessori method focuses on the child’s inborn ability to learn from his surroundings. Thus the teacher aims to encourage the natural curiosity of the child. He is never forced to learn or explore. When the child understands why he needs to learn something, he will love the learning process.

Conclusion

The four teaching styles above are just a few of the variety of methods available to home schooling families. Whatever the method, the underlying factor is flexibility and a keen interest in the desires of the child. The secret is in adapting curriculum and method to each child – to inspire them to learn more.

Laura Childs
This article was originally published on GoodByeCityLife.com in 2008

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First, before you answer, try to determine the querant’s meaning of "socialization." Here’s a few we’ve all run into with some food for thought (or retaliation).

"Where will a homeschooled child learn…

…to work in groups?"

Group co-operation is taught wonderfully in the home first. Daily chores or errands as well as new tasks can be accomplished with co-operation from all household members. Later this ability can be polished in child focused groups such as scouts, guides, bible group, etc.

"Love is what’s in the room with you at Christmas if you stop opening presents and listen."

Bobby- age 7

…to make and keep friends?"

Friendships aren’t only made in schools. Friends are gained through time and effort during meaningful and interesting interactions. This type of socialization (positive) can be gained through after school and weekend events, home-schooling support groups, pen pals, summer camp, etc.

…to stand up for themselves or fight?"

Wouldn’t we rather teach our children negotiating skills than fist-fighting? Home schooled children learn safer, more effective ways of dealing with threatening situations. Children who feel the need to learn how to defend themselves physically can enroll in a martial arts program.

…to wait their turn, take orders, follow rules or sit at a desk all day?"

How many years does it take for a child to realize that the world does not revolve around them? Is this something we really need to pound into their young egos for 12 consecutive years? Do our children not learn at home that their needs can’t always be met on the spot, that at times parents are bossy and that rules must be followed?

…manners?"

Being around adults setting good examples of manners is far better than being around peers who don’t have any. Manners are best taught in the home, with loving guidance, rather than in the schools with shame.

…to accept people of ethnic and diverse cultural backgrounds?"

In the community, when they are with us all day. At least this way we can instill our values into our young charges during the impressionable years. Schooled children are largely affected by their peers’ prejudices, peers who carry with them their parent’s attitudes about other cultures.

In school children learn to to disregard other cultures, taunting and teasing them because of their differences. Seldom is respect and acceptance for differing cultures learned in the school.

If you have any questions left unanswered about homeschooling and socialization, don’t hesitate to contact me. I’d be honored to help.

Laura Childs
This article was originally published on GoodByeCityLife.com in 1998

Resources

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Home schooling starts young, in fact learning at home in the early years of life is the perfect prelude to home schooling!

You can start your pre-schooler on the path to joyful learning from as early on as 2 years old (even younger if you know how to make learning fun).

Parents who spend lots of time talking to their baby and pre-schooler in interesting and excited tones (when appropriate) can instill a love of discovery and a desire to ‘know’ in their children. On the other hand, babies and pre-schoolers who aren’t ‘engaged’ or interacted with on a regular basis, have been shown to be ‘flat’ about learning and often don’t do well with any form of discovery of knowledge. The uninspired ones.

"Love is when you go out to eat and give somebody most of your French Fries without making them give you any of theirs."
Chris- age 6

Playing With Your PreSchooler

Once your child is old enough to sit comfortably, get them involved in crafting. Crafting begins conversations about colors, textures, tools, and dimensions. Crafting hours turn into full blown projects which eventually morph into learning, reading (through labels made for many items in the home) during a crafting session.

Interaction and making the learning process a ‘game’ keeps pre-schoolers excited about learning new things. They are, in fact, naturals at it – you simply have to capitalize on that natural desire.

One great home schooling mom (her son still quite young) shops the bulk craft section of the country store catalog and she and her son have a blast coming up with, and then creating new projects!

She swears the assortment of activities and games led her son onto the path of being a ‘lateral thinker’ by age 4 with a knack for organization of facts and data. See her suggestions for crafting inexpensively with these bulk and wholesale craft products just below, but click around GoodByeCityLife’s Country Children section to get more fun ideas for learning.

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My daughter Veronica started reading before she was 3. That talent was facilitated by just one hour of our time together at the crafting table. She cut labels for me, I wrote words on those scraps of paper, and she stuck them to objects around the house. For a few months she’d walk from room to room, slapping the labels as she passed, and naming the item. Eventually, she wanted more – to read her own picture books, following my voice along with her finger on the words of each page.

Try it yourself and see. Give it 6 months or so. Stick a small piece of paper on the wall "wall", one on the chair "chair", one on the "door". Use all lower case or all upper case letters (we used lower) to start. After that we used scrapbooks to keep our ‘learnings’ in. The first sheet was a color sheet – color names written in their color – blue, red, green, yellow, etc.

Once a child begins to read the entire world opens up to them.

As children grow they will learn with gusto about the things that interest them. Discover their interests and you’re off and running. Kids are natural learners, we don’t need to impose on them. We do, however, have the responsibility to ensure they don’t grow up lazy. Too much television, video games, and lack of interaction will ruin a child’s creativity and desire to learn. Life becomes complacent, the children become apathetic.

"When someone loves you, the way they say your name is different. You just know that your name is safe in their mouths."
Billy- age 4

Educational Games for Home Schools

Games are fine, as long as they have some educational value. My daughter inherited my old work computer and I bought up some outdated and cheap learning games (edutainment), for the old beast.

She played and learned on that computer for over 3 years, right beside me while I worked from home on a newer, faster, laptop. Soon I’ll have to upgrade my own machine and pass it on to her. (In fact, I’m editing this page 9 years after I originally wrote it, she ended up acquiring her own laptop and maintains it herself today.

Social Interaction and Life Skill Building

Take your children everywhere with you – banking, shopping, helping others, whatever you do make them a part of your world. Be sure to talk to them about what you’re doing through the day, why you’re making the decisions you are, and how your decisions affect the household, the environment, your health. You’ll be amazed by the questions they ask while they process your decisions and the learning opportunities within each conversation.

A friend of mine said his kids learned more on a 6 month road trip to Mexico than 4 years of being in high school. Culture, art, language, business, monetary exchange rates, survival, and so on. Both of his children have grown to be highly successful adults, well rounded and appreciated for their good nature, honesty and morals.

Learning Through Play

Some people say that children learn heaps in play, and I do agree with them.

Let them play at home. Learning to amuse themselves at home, instead of being told what to do all the time at school, will serve them well later in life. As a rule, children don’t like to be bored and they’ll come up with something creative – if you can just give them time to do so.

Reading for the Home Schooled Child

I cannot stress enough to parents the importance of reading the printed word. If a person can read they can learn any thing, any time.

Instilling the love of reading is the greatest gift you could ever give a child. However, some children seem to have trouble with reading. Find some teaching elementary level reading at a home school tips.

Finally, if I may add, that life is a journey, let your child lead (even just for a while) and see where it takes you. Children adapt remarkably to responsibility and they will take their educational responsibility mindset into the future.

Laura Childs, A Home Schooling Mom

This article was originally written and posted on GoodByeCityLife back in 1999

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Socialization is hailed by public school supports as the greatest advantage to typical schooling. Yet this is the place where some of the worst habits and insecurities are picked up by our children!

Public school supporters say that school is the place where a child picks up the rudiments of social skills that will help him survive later in life. Yet in truth, a regular school attending girl or boy can interact only with his peers. He or she may bully younger children or fear older ones. He or she does not know how to interact authentically with an adult.

These are just two of many reasons public schools do not service our children’s social capabilities well. In the school environment our boys and girls are interacting only with their peers.

On the other side, home schooling environments bring in a more natural social environment.

Public Schooling is Unnatural Learning

There is no other time in a person’s life where they are forced to interact only with people their own age. It is completely unnatural. Therefore the ’social’ stigma of non home schooling parents is eradicated.

A regular schooled child cannot read literature, keep silent, or think in depth about any one topic. This artificial education style, imposed upon him by the school, disallows quiet contemplation. Rowdy and destructive behavior from peers as well as perpetual noise from the teachers, are far too common.

There is little long-standing knowledge among regular school goers because most facts are learnt solely for the exam. There is no association of these facts with everyday life. The child may know a lot, but understands very little when the time arrives to be functional in society. This is where the home schooling families excel. Ultimately, homeschoolers emerge more adept at facing the outside world.

Is Home Schooling Legal?

As I write this, home schooling is legal in all 50 States of the U.S. as well as Canada. However laws and regulations regarding home schooling vary from state to state, province to province. Furthermore, interpretations of these laws can vary from one school district to the next. These laws are often changed and revised on a regular basis.

I might suggest checking out state laws regarding home schooling before you begin to educate your sons and daughters at home to prevent any surprises by the authorities.

Who Is the Home Schooling Teacher?

The teacher is the key to the success in home schooling. In most cases, the teacher is a parent or relative. In some cases, parents divide the subjects between them, hire a home school teacher, or join a group of homeschoolers in their area and pool their resources between families. Whatever your situation, children need time with their parents. Parents, as a rule, make very good teachers for their home schooled children.

Teaching does not require a degree nor does the style require a clinical presentation of facts. Learning has to be integrated lovingly into daily life for it to interest the child. If you feel anxious about your skill or knowledge, relax.

You Are Not Alone in Home Schooling

There are countless home-schooling resources that are aimed at helping you. Professional curriculum packages, support groups, online help via websites, virtual schools and library resources are all available resources to the home schooling family. When you start out, you may want to make use of the commercial curriculum packages. Specialized software allows you to record and log important achievements and lessons learned.

Laura Childs
Another Home Schooling Mom

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How far are they away from your home? What of their reputations? What alternative services are available locally for children?

Local isn’t always best though – especially if your child has special needs, is gifted, or you’re attempting to raise your son or daughter differently than the norm. After all, not one of us wants to raise children to grow to be like the average teenager – sassy at the least, exploratory in drugs and alcohol at the moderate, and pregnant by 15 at the worst!

It doesn’t have to be that way, normal, average, you know. You don’t have to suffer with standard services for your child either when you live in the country. There is a viable alternative! Home schooling.

More Reasons To Home School

Perhaps the school bus won’t come within miles of your country home driveway. Or maybe you have become disillusioned with the ’system’ of school. Whatever your reasons might be to further investigate home-schooling, with a little investigation you will quickly discover that many top notch child experts (a large part of them retired school teachers) now agree that home-based education is the most beneficial method for educating children of any age or ability.

One of the most ground-breaking discoveries due to the popularity of home schooling in the last 20 years or so, is the incredible success observed by something called self-directed learning. This is where you allow your child to decide what they want to learn about next, and by doing so, they approach their studies with gusto.

I read a piece a while back about how the parents of a 7 year old boy had not forced reading on the lad but ensured that he had the very basics down. That boy took an interest in flight and airplanes and wanted to learn more – yet the subject was out of the mother and father’s knowledge zone. The child, eager to learn more, gathered books from the library on his topic and spent days pouring over those books until his thirst was quenched. And in the end he had surpassed a Grade 4 level of reading comprehension!

The Viable Alternative

Home-schooling. With the availability of information at your fingertips (Internet, Encyclopedia CD’s, etc) and correspondence courses home-schooling is more than attainable – technology makes it downright simple. And, if you’re worried about bucking the trend and people looking at you strangely when you tell them you home school your child, recent stats say that over 1 million families world-wide are teaching nearly 3 million children at home!

Worried about College Admission for Your Home Schooled Child?

Many home schooling teenagers are breaking the misconception today that many people have. Namely, if you are home schooled you’ll never be accepted into university or college.

Ha! Most home schooled children, upon writing their University admissions test pass with flying colors! Some of them 3-4 years younger than their traditionally schooled counterparts!

Parents are Tutors Too!

Learning at Home – Instilling the love of learning is the greatest gift you could ever give a child. If your child is struggling with reading, math, science, languages, etc. at any level, I suggest clicking this link: (find slightly or never used study materials in our country catalog – check the categories on the right on that page for various subjects and age groups).

Laura Childs
This article on home schooling was originally published on GoodByeCityLife.com in 2000.

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"Love is what makes you smile when you’re tired."
Terri- age 4

Just like John Holt’s books, the needs of children and the public schools that we shove them into haven’t changed one bit.

Now don’t get me wrong here. Public schools are okay, if you have no other alternative, but if you can swing it in any way, shape or form, I urge you to consider home schooling as soon as possible for your child or children.

Anyone Can Home School!

For the first 8 years of my daughter’s life I was a single mom, with no help, time or support from family. To make matters worse I had left my long time friends behind when I said "GoodByeCityLife" so she and I were completely alone and on our own.

Now you may be thinking that this was alright for me, or that I must have had some special trait that you do not possess, but let me assure you that there is nothing special about me – other than determination and spunk.

You can do anything in this world that you set your mind to do. If your children are your priority you will home school them once you’ve learned a little about home schooling and child psychology – all can be obtained within 1/2 hour of reading.

And you don’t need to follow the tough road I traveled – I took a large financial hit, cashed out my pension, moved to a small run-down house, and didn’t buy anything new for myself for 5 years. Plus, I worked all night after spending time with and bonding with my child all day. I averaged 4 hours of sleep a night for those first 8 years.

Is Home Schooling Worth the Work?

You may wonder if it was worth it. My answer was that I wouldn’t have had it any other way. Veronica is now 12 – the age where most girls are getting sassy and rude and pulling away from their parents. On the home schooling side life is much different. Home schooled children are still tightly bonded with their parents, have learned to make educated and smart decisions on their own, and are respectful of persons – peers or not. It’s just natural in the home schooled child.

Your home schooling venture does not need to be like mine – only the end of the journey needs to align. You likely can rely on friends and family. You likely have a spouse that will support you. You likely don’t have to learn the hard lessons I did when I was raising my home schooled child because there is just so much more help and assistance available to home schoolers now.

The path has been made for you. Support groups, clubs, free resources, online lesson plans – the list is endless.

If you’d like to read more about home schooling – from my perspective – please continue on and follow the links below. And if you need to ask questions, don’t hesitate to email me. I’d be honored to be involved in a journey that will grow both you and your child in ways you could never have imagined!

Learning can be accomplished through play. Word play, dexterity exercises, and number play are all foundations for higher learning and make home schooling educations fun!

The end result? Children who grow up to be adults that don’t lose their inquisitive nature and who recognize that learning doesn’t stop after university or college!

Here’s a few fun home schooling activities, for the elementary aged child (from 5 to 11 years old).

Word Play for Home Schoolers: How About A Brain Boost? (9 and up)

This will keep their brains working during the it’s-all-about-fun summer months. Boost creativity, vocabulary and have fun with creative thinking puzzles, wordplay, riddles and brain teasers. My favorites? Some of them are showing at the bottom of this page.

All ages love crafting with paper, so be sure to check out our paper crafting projects page.

Not Home Schooling? Here’s some help entertaining and educating, even in the summer months…

Eric and I have been busy entertaining our own and other people’s children for quite some time. We know it’s easy to run out of ideas. We’ve found some valuable resources at great prices for you that we highly recommend. There’s lots of ideas here for you, just browse around and see what strikes your fancy. Products for sale are generally within the $10-20 range, you’ll get a lot of use out of these resources for a small amount of money.

Each one has been hand selected to combine perfectly with stay-at-home moms, home schoolers, day care centers, Sunday School classes, babysitters and camp leaders.

So, get busy, have fun and enjoy those children this summer – without feeling drained and exhausted!

Discount Home School Supplies

• Everything For the Home School
• Alphabet Related
• Art Software
• Early Learning Software
• History & Geography
• Language Skills
• Language Skills Software
• Math
• Math Software
• Music & Art
• Problem Solving Software
• Science & Nature
• Science Software
• Social Studies Software
• Home School Textbooks

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Symptoms of burnout vary from a lack of patience during lessons to overeating or emotional instability without any apparent reason.

Stressing Over Home Schooling – Just A Wake Up Call

Surprisingly, a home school related burnout need not be such a bad thing. This can serve as a wake-up call – an indicator that perhaps the home schooling is not going as well as planned, and that a new curriculum or schedule is required. Reversing or avoiding a burnout is possible if you pay attention to the early warning signs.

Some good first steps, if you feel a burn out coming on, is to consider lowering your expectations. Many new home schooling parents strive for perfection and then become depressed or disappointed with the results. Learn to take good days with the bad.

Next, when a lesson or lesson plan does not seem to take ground, look for alternative methods to educate or inform. Flexibility is a key factor to successful home schooling. If tension begins to mount just take a break until you come up with a new plan of action. You may consider changing your style of teaching as well as your lesson plans.

Another consideration is to avoid packing too many ‘extra’ activities into your curriculum merely for the sake of socialization. A worn out mom usually equals an uncooperative child. No matter where you are in the world you have multiple avenues for support when you are tired, burnt out, or discouraged. Get help from your spouse, a neighbor, or even a home schoolers support group. You don’t need to be in this all by your self.

Home schooling means happy schooling.

If the Stress is Too High, Consider Unschooling

Unschooling is another style of home schooling that doesn’t get much press anymore. However it is a viable alternative to rigid educational styles at home.

There are no curriculum and no boundaries in unschooling. Many new-to-home-school parents feel apprehensive about such freedom. But, when explored, unschooling has certain guidelines that make it a great method.

The gist is to allow your child to express their interests and select the topics. If he or she wants to learn about plants, educate about the various grains and seeds, their functions, parts of the plant and so on. Just keep it appropriate for their age group and don’t overwhelm with facts and tests. Allow children the freedom to stop when satiated.

In unschooling, parents expand their child’s areas of interests with the use of books, videos, internet resources, fun quizzes, magazines and games when available. Simultaneously, broaden your own interests. The more you know and/or are excited about learning yourself, the more your child learns.

Un-schoolers are astutely aware of all opportunities for learning in daily life. When in the kitchen preparing a snack or meal, they discuss the vitamins in fruits and vegetables. Or what makes tomatoes red, lettuce green and how leafy vegetables benefit the human body. One area of interested and engaged learning leads to the next this way.

Laura Childs

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Which only serves to remind me how far we are from modern civilization…and our favorite store – Chapters.

My daughter, 11 years old as I write this, after having spent an hour browsing the floor to ceiling shelves, sighs on her way to the cash register "Oh, I just love books."

As a parent who loves to read you’ll know that little else could make me beam than a statement like that uttered from her lips!

I don’t think it’s genetic. I think her love of reading comes from being home-schooled for all those years, not being allowed to prop herself in front of the television set and having to learn to amuse herself. And I pray this will be a key point to her success as a young adult – not looking for external resources to entertain…

Starting Young with Book Reading

"Love is when your puppy licks your face even after you left him alone all day."
Mary Ann, age 3

When she was just 6 days old I read her first book to her – Chicken Soup with Rice – on the advice of my dear friend and retired Grade 1 school teacher Linda Hart. I only just stopped reading books to her last year. She didn’t ask me to, I just became too busy to read her a chapter or two at night.

She reads enough on her own anyway. And the friends that she’s selected are avid readers as well. They’re forever swapping books or deciding whose turn it is to buy the next in the Gossip Girls series. (These girls are very mature for their age.)

Which is why I’ve found myself spending more and more time at the library and the used section of bookstores with her. Buying new books for both of us all the time can eat up our household income and home schooling budget very quickly!

If your child isn’t a natural reader but you recognize the immense value of reading you might like to look for outside help to get them more involved with books. My husband is a prime example of why some kids need outside help and inspiration. He remembers his mother standing over his shoulder forcing him to struggle through every word and always being made to feel embarassed by his struggle. To this day he still doesn’t read – even though his wife is an author!

I truly believe that instilling the love of reading is the greatest gift you could ever give your child. It opens up a life and new world to them between every dust jacket. It teaches them to amuse themselves and hopefully keeps them away from drugs, sex and other mind-altering substances.

Somehow I’ve moved away from my topic here…

If you’re looking for home schooling books, I hope some of the inexpensive resources and links below will help.

Laura Childs

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