By the way, kudos to Dana of Principled Discovery for her recent article on homeschool graduates. If you can snag the Sept/Oct ’06 issue of Home School Enrichment magazine, the article begins on page 62 and quotes both myself and my daughter, Jennifer, plus several other notable homeschoolers. Take note, beginning homeschoolers, you can see this journey through to its logical completion!
When Is Reading NOT Reading?
September 6, 2006 by 1 Comment
The high school senior was asked to read a portion from the Bible during his Sunday School class. He struggled painfully over nearly every word. His efforts were so halting and disjointed that no one could follow the context of the passage easily. A girl seated next to him followed along in her own Bible, helping him with most of the words. The truly appalling part of this story is not that the twelfth grade student could not read fluently, but that no one in the room seemed to think it was at all unusual to have such difficulty in reading aloud. This young man, who was well known at school and considered a popular classmate and a “good” student, was probably reading at around a 2nd grade level. And none of his classmates in the room was alarmed by his performance.
The techniques that were used to teach reading when my daughter was in public school included identifying words by their unique shapes. “Does the word start with a letter that is taller than the others? Does the word end with a letter that dangles down below the others? Does the word have a roundish letter in the middle? That word is boy.” (Unless the word happens to be dog. Or toy. Hmmm. It could even be log.) Pictorial clues were also used to help identify words: “Let’s look at the picture in the storybook and guess which word fits best in the sentence. Yes, it must be boy. See that little guy sitting on a fallen tree trunk, holding a stuffed cloth puppy? This story is about him, so the word is definitely boy.” (Or not. If you missed the irony in my example, go back and read it again.) My daughter can still testify to the indoctrination of “identifying” words by only a few letters: she recently glanced at a price tag, bearing the code R8052CY, and mistook it for the word “Regency.”
When confusion over the correct word sets in, the popular instruction in today’s classrooms encourages students to think of words that start with the sound of the first letter or two in the word, again guessing a word they are familiar with that will fit with the rest of the sentence or story. I cannot judge your reading ability or your vocabulary, but I know that I occasionally find unfamiliar words in things that I read — now — today. How can a beginning reader be expected to know what all words will look like even before he can read them?
As you may suspect, children who have been taught to “read” using this shape-guessing technique do not become fluent readers. They do not enjoy reading. They cannot read quickly. They do not like to read aloud and, when forced to read aloud, do so slowly and without confidence. They are never quite sure if the letter is a b or a d or if it is a q or a p or a g. Ch- can make several sounds — how will they know which one to use? And do not even bring up a word containing -ough! These students are quickly labeled “dyslexic” and told that they have confusion over letter placements within words, but they are seldom given any instruction for how to overcome this difficulty. These students have little comprehension of what they read: they cannot understand what they read, so they also cannot remember what they read. Is it any wonder that they do poorly in school? Some who act out their frustrations at the inconsistency in their abilities are further labeled ADD, ADHD, and other multi-letter classifications which entitle the school to receive additional funding. And yet the funding does not translate into more efficient teaching methods.
So when is reading not reading? Obviously, the examples given above are not reading — they are guessing. To read, a person must recognize each letter, the sound it makes, and how it acts in combinations with other letters. Letters must be read as their sounds and not as their names, and the sounds of the letters must be read in the order that they appear within the word. Certain combinations of letters appear over and over again in various words, forming patterns. Phonics is the study of the sounds made by those letter combinations and patterns. Guessing at the visual shapes of words has nothing whatsoever to do with the sounds of letters. My daughter had been terribly confused by the difference between letter names and letter sounds: she thought they were interchangeable, since her school readily accepted her spelling of words such as “invite” as n-v-i-t. Incidentally, the “sight reading” method was invented as a way to teach deaf children to read — children who had no ability to sound out words. One would think that “professional” educators could recognize it as a “last resort” method for children who can hear, being far inferior to reading by sounds.
Phonics instruction includes the rules for breaking words into their syllables. (Lesson #1 being that a syllable must have at least one vowel; a word with only one vowel can therefore be only one syllable. I recently had to pull out my trusty dictionary to prove to a skeptic that the word rhythm has only one syllable, since it contains only the single vowel y.) Recognizing individual syllables enables the student to read even long, complicated chemical names as a series of smaller word-parts making up the big word. Learning about prefixes and suffixes and root words as a part of phonics enables the student to separate syllables easily and to understand the meanings of the various parts of a multi-syllable word, bringing understanding along with the reading process. Phonics will successfully teach a student to read, and a student who understands phonics will be able to read any word placed before him. Any word. He may need to consult a dictionary for its exact meaning, but the phonetic reader can come close to the correct pronunciation.
An independent organization that evaluates the performance of various industries recently looked into the performance of the public schools in my state. What it found most surprising was that the “proficiency” standards for each grade level have been redefined. A student who is considered “proficient” for fourth grade only has to measure up to third grade standards. And the gap widens considerably with advancing grade levels, to the point that a graduating senior’s “proficiency” level is several years below what should be expected from a twelfth grade education. That could be compared to going to a store and attempting to purchase your items with a $20 bill and being told that your cash is really only worth $15 in spending power, inflation arguments aside. Regardless of the denomination printed on the currency (or the report card), reality lies far below the appearance. Most of us would be upset to learn that the “proficiency” standards of a new home were skewed to the point that when the builder says the house contains five bedrooms, he really means that it has only enough room for three people to sleep comfortably. I would not want to purchase a 12-pack of sodas and find that the box actually contained only eight cans. And yet, that is the same false advertising that is being accepted from the public schools. Proficient does not mean proficient, and reading does not mean reading.
The real tragedy here is that students are passing through school, not knowing how to read properly. (A young acquaintance recently commented that she “flunked tenth grade, but was still going on into eleventh.” How does that even happen?) These students are being led to believe that they are adequately prepared for college, where they will be expected to consume massive amounts of reading materials and retain that knowledge for future reference. A student who has mild to moderate difficulty reading a child’s storybook will have incredible difficulty digesting college-level texts at the commonly expected rate of one hundred pages per night. Is it any wonder that the average 4-year bachelor’s degree now takes at least five years to attain?
Parents, if you have chosen to homeschool your children, do not neglect a thorough study of phonics in your lesson plans. The time you devote to studying spelling patterns, syllable divisions, prefixes, suffixes, roots, and word origins will set your students apart from their peers and give them a tremendous boost toward independent learning for the rest of their lives. As my husband recently quipped, “Once you’re over 50, if you don’t know phonics, you can’t remember how to spell anything!”
Redeeming a Disaster Day
August 30, 2006 by Leave a Comment
This was a bad day. A horrible day. A day which has made you question why in the world you ever dared to think that you could homeschool your own children in the first place. This was a Really.Bad.Day. You would be tempted to call it The Worst Day Ever Possible, except that you are afraid that tomorrow may sink even lower.
Parents who are new to homeschooling, as well as those who have been at this for several years, will all experience Disaster Days from time to time. Books will disappear. Previously learned lessons will evaporate from memories. Chores will remain undone. Pencils will remain untouched. Children will fight. Children will scream. Parents will scream back. Tears will flow.
Right now, you need to take a few deep breaths and try to stop shaking. Let the children go outside to play in the relative safety of the back yard or send them to their respective rooms for a period of contemplation and personal reflection, while you and I work at redeeming this Day of Disaster.
Your first assignment is to look back over the day for anything positive. Did most members of the family perform their daily routine of personal hygiene? If not yet, maybe they can still get it completed before bedtime tonight. Was enough food consumed to be considered a meal? If not yet, you can have peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and a glass of milk for supper or a bedtime snack, covering the four basic food groups in the most basic way.
If a single workbook page was completed, you have made progress. If a single lesson concept was explained or discussed, you have made progress. If a single page of a single book was read, you have made progress. No, it is not a giant leap of progress, it is not a baby step of progress, and it is not at all what you had planned to complete today, but it is progress, nonetheless.
Maybe the dirty dishes piled up to new record heights, but that is probably a good indicator that your family ate today. Maybe your toddler escaped from the house and ran around the neighborhood stripping off his clothing as he went — but that is an indicator that he is mastering the skill of dressing himself. Ok, undressing himself, but it is still a necessary skill in life. Maybe a pipe burst under the bathroom sink and flooded the whole room, but once the proper repairs have been made and the mess is finally cleaned up, that floor will be cleaner than it has been for quite some time. Give yourselves a hearty pat on the back for any subject that was actually completed today. Bonus points will be awarded to any family who completed an entire load of laundry — even if it was only the towels that soaked up the flood in the bathroom. Partial credit will be given for any load that has made it through any single step of the washing-drying-folding-restocking process. Progress is usually present, even in a Disaster Day — but sometimes you have to look closely to find it.
So what about those of you who cannot find even one step of forward momentum in your Disaster Day? There are times when we all must accept the lack of backsliding as a sign of progress. You may not be inching forward, but you are not sliding backward, so, therefore, you are holding your ground. Maintaining your position — that position you worked very hard to achieve — is progress in itself. You may feel like you are just hanging on by your fingernails, but you are still hanging on.
Perhaps sickness has invaded your home, stopping everyone in his tracks. Perhaps you and your family have been pushing yourselves too hard, and this is the only way any of you would get a day of rest. Rest, therefore, and know that your bodies are purging themselves of nasty things and will regain the strength needed to continue on once this vile sickness has passed. Stop reciting the lists of tasks completed by the over-achievers down the block, concentrate on getting well first, and then tackle what you can do, when you can do it.
Perhaps you have been the unwitting victim of some outside influence: a weather-borne disaster, an accident, a death in the family, or another serious, unforeseen disruption. Life happens. None of us can plan for every possible contingency, but each of us can learn from our circumstances and be better prepared for the next time life throws us a curve ball. Becoming better prepared is learning a lesson, and learning a lesson is a sign of progress.
When my children were toddlers, their meals and snacks were often unbalanced combinations of foods. I learned to view their entire day of food intake and balance that, rather than attempt to balance each individual meal for picky eaters. Similarly, when we began homeschooling, I learned to “balance” the entire week of lessons, instead of trying to do everything on each separate day. Some days we did no spelling lessons; some days we did only math. Considering the entire week, we covered all of our lessons. Usually. Once in a while, I had to expand my view to balance two weeks together, but I could see that, in the end, we would still accomplish all of the important things that we needed to accomplish. Our local public school operates on a six-day schedule (don’t ask), proving that not even the “professional educators” can get everything done in a week’s time. Make your plans, do your best, and stop beating yourself up for things you have no control over.
When confronted with a Disaster Day, encourage yourself with these pointers:
1) Look for any signs of progress.
2) Accept the lack of backsliding as a sign of progress.
3) Learn from the Disaster Day and call those lessons a sign of progress.
You can survive a Disaster Day, and you can draw strength from it to tackle tomorrow as the fresh start that it is.
If you still need more encouragement, see:
What Didn’t Work for Today Can Be Changed for Tomorrow
Your Children Will Not Always Be Like This
Homeschooling Is Hard Work
Looking Back on the Bad Days
Topical Index: Encouragement for Parents
A Homeschooler’s View of Education
August 2, 2006 by 1 Comment
My view of academics and education changed significantly throughout my years as a homeschool teacher. Once upon a time, I thought of education as something that ended with 12th grade graduation or was extended by some people with a foray into college. During my stint in college, there was an older gentleman whom we younger students joked about as being a “professional student” because he had been taking a class or two each semester for years. I did not realize then that education could be a lifelong endeavor; I just assumed he did not know what he wanted to be when he grew up. Now I can look back at my foolish naivete’ and be grateful that maturity eventually replaces youthful ignorance and its accompanying arrogance.
Education is merely the process of learning, and I continue to learn every day. Learning is learning, whether one is studying a foreign language or making a mental note to avoid the pothole down the block. Learning is the reason why we read the newspaper or watch the local weather forecast on television. We become more educated when we try a new recipe: at the very least, we learn whether or not we want to make that recipe again. Learning, education, and academics take on new, more personal meanings with the advent of homeschooling.
Legal homeschooling in our state required that we submit documents annually to the state Department of Education. One form had boxes to check to indicate your students’ participation in various extra-curricular activities. At first, I viewed those activities in much the same straightforward way that any other educator would. After a few years of homeschooling, however, my viewpoint had shifted, and I began to see things a bit differently — from a homeschooler’s point of view.
Regular library visits? Well, we had never experienced an irregular visit, no matter how infrequently they occurred, so, yes, we planned regular library visits.
Field trips? Yes, we participated in field trips, whether to the grocery store or with more structured, group activities.
Music lessons? Yes, group singing would be taking place at church. There would also be the intermittent “Happy Birthday” choruses and Christmas carols, singing along with children’s videos, banging on the pots and pans, and singing the latest catchy advertising jingles. (It does not have to cost money to be a real lesson.)
Sports activities? Most definitely! You cannot make these children sit still for long! I did not see this as requiring us to join the local soccer club; to me, it could also mean playing horsey with Dad, riding your bike, or splashing in the wading pool — getting off of the sofa and out of the house.
Other planned social experiences? This must have been listed just to satisfy those weirdos who think that homeschoolers never leave the house, but, yes, we did plan to experience society from time to time, and Wal-Mart was typically a melting pot of society in our community.
Another required document was our “plan” for the year’s lessons. I learned to view that with the same earnestness with which I viewed preparation time for dinner each night: we would eat dinner each night, so therefore there would be some type of preparation for it. One night’s dinner may require several hours of hands-on preparation, while another night’s meal may only require phoning the pizza delivery guy. Either way, we ate. Similarly, some lessons received intensive, hands-on preparation, and others were delivered by flipping open a book, but either way, we learned. My Plan of Instruction did not list detailed lesson plans, but did list the approximate amount of time each student would spend per day on each subject (per week for lower grades). [See also Guilt-Free Lesson Plans and Scheduling] If we spent more time or less time on any certain area on any certain day, what did it matter? Some lessons were fast-food snacks, and other lessons were seven-course-meal events. The learning itself was what mattered, not the speed of the delivery, and there were many times when we learned more from the spontaneous, quick-snack lessons than we did from the this-took-me-all-day-to-prepare lessons.
Information of academic importance obviously means different things to different people. Another mandate on our annual report stated that a revised form was to be filed if any of the listed information changed during the year. Throughout the years that my children were enrolled in public school, we were rarely informed of changes to the routine, including some important changes in the staff. After we had been homeschooling for a few years, we were (again) not notified when the district’s Homeschooling Coordinator left on a two-week vacation, leaving a letter of resignation and two weeks’ notice on her desk, a gaping hole in the district’s staff, and many confused families in a state somewhere between shock and limbo — during the busiest time for the district office, the month before the fall semester began. Therefore, based on their precedent, I concluded that most of the changes I could make to our plans would be of minor significance to the district, and I switched textbooks and materials whenever I felt the need to do so, Guilt-Free, without bothering to inform them of such trivial details.
My view of the ideal teaching methods for individual subjects also changed. Once my students were reading well on their own, I allowed their “reading” course to be done in bed at night as a “decompression” time before Lights Out. I found that I was able to monitor their reading ability in their other subjects well enough that I no longer bothered to keep track of their personal, pleasure reading for a “reading class.”
Education, learning, and academics mean different things to different people. “Professional” educators view learning as an activity that takes place under their highly trained supervision. I, as a homeschool educator, see learning as more of a 24 hours a day, 7 days a week pursuit. We do not always need books or plans or even a stone-faced serious attitude in order to come away from something as a smarter person. Education and learning can and do take place in the garage or on the playground, while doing chores or while having fun, early in the morning or late into the night. Education is the process of learning. Learn something every day.
People Who Nearly Scared Me Away from Homeschooling
July 25, 2006 by 1 Comment
The following are examples from actual homeschooling families that I met throughout our homeschooling days. These are composite examples in that they each represent multiple persons and not single individuals. If the majority of families we met had been like these, I would probably not be here now, encouraging other families to try homeschooling. These people have the power to startle even the most dedicated of homeschoolers. If you meet any of them, please learn from my experience and do not be afraid. Look the other way.
The Pioneers
The Pioneers had more children than could comfortably fit into the average elevator. The number of children was not what bothered me: it was their mannerisms which I found slightly unnerving. Whenever I saw them, their darling girls could have balanced a book on their heads throughout the entire day, and their truly adorable boys were uncommonly quiet in cleaner jeans than most little boys like to be caught wearing. However, these children all moved with determined slowness and rarely made eye contact with anyone outside their family unit.
There was something eerily unnatural about that many children being that quiet — always that quiet. Seeing them for the first time, I made a mental note to train my own, smaller brood to behave so well in public. Seeing The Pioneers multiple times, in various circumstances, left me wondering if these children were ever allowed to play or act like children. I could not help but wonder if, when they played tag (did they play tag?), did they still move so slowly and sedately?
Every member of The Pioneer Family had a dour, gray complexion; they were all skinny and unhealthy-looking, like anorexic, cave-dwelling mannequins come to life. They attended every homeschool conference, stationed at their booth in the vendor hall, selling some type of nutrition products. I wanted to take the children outside to play in the sunshine. I wanted to give them puppies and kittens and candy and tell silly stories to make them smile. I wanted to lead them in a rousing game of hide-and-seek or tag. And I wanted to stay far away from whatever they were eating (and selling), if that was what made them look and act the way they did.
The Pusher
Not an illegal drug dealer, but the gloating know-it-all type of man or woman who pushes other people into doing what he or she wants them to do. One Pusher I encountered had very small family, she did every activity imaginable with her very small family, she seemed to detest anyone who was part of a larger family, and she refused to understand why other families did not want to do all of the activities that she was doing. She bragged about all of the activities they had done in the past, she bragged about what activities they were going to do in the future, and she told you how you should be doing any activity you were foolish enough to mention in her presence. She had more confusing rules for homeschooling than the IRS has for reporting income, and she ordered people around like a drill sergeant. She gave me a strong desire to go AWOL.
The Dragger
A puller, as opposed to The Pusher. This overly enthusiastic person also wanted to do every conceivable activity, but this one insisted on dragging everyone else along with her. She did not tell you what you should be doing — she picked you up in her car and took you there. One Dragger that I knew intended to return her children to public school after a brief stint in homeschooling, and she crammed more studies and activities into each year than some homeschoolers will cover in five years. She put enough bells and whistles into her lessons to make Martha Stewart tired. Then she stopped homeschooling, and I felt like I could breathe again. I even opened my curtains again and unlocked my door.
Goldilocks
The Goldilocks Family, to be precise. The family I met had all little girls, who were all dressed in perfectly pressed plaid dresses with perfectly tied bows in their perfectly curled golden ringlets. They recited perfect poems and sang perfectly harmonious songs and wrote perfectly penned essays. They were never loud or boisterous. They never ran or cut in line or pushed or shoved. They never got dirty — hey, they never even wrinkled. Point me to a soft bed — I think I need to lie down.
Doogie Howser’s Family
Actually, that name is unfair to young Dr. Doogie. In the television family, Doogie was mature beyond his years, and his parents had endeavored to give him “normal” childhood experiences to balance his extraordinary achievements as a 16-year-old medical intern. The “Howsers” that I met tried to convince everyone that their children were geniuses and child prodigies. These pushy parents valued pride and progress above the innocence of childhood. Their incredibly average children were raced through double lessons each day, more for the sake of making progress than for actually retaining anything. The parents were obnoxious beasts, and the children were equally obnoxious beasts. I do not know what they intended to do with obnoxiously beastly 12-year-olds who were supposedly ready for Ivy League colleges. I do know what I wanted to do with them.
Oddly enough, the few children I have met in my lifetime whom I actually felt were geniuses or prodigies were neither obnoxious nor beastly, and their parents did not have to force them through lessons but rather found themselves in a constant race to keep up with their insatiable offspring, quite similar to the characters from “Doogie Howser, M.D.”
The Paper Shufflers
One Shuffler kept track of every book he had ever read — title, author, publisher, number of pages, genre, and so many more details that I had to stop listening. I must also mention the Shuffler families whose children wrote so many essays, reports, poems, stories, novels, and other compositions that their year-end displays resembled a tax-preparer’s office in April — piles of papers everywhere you looked.
Another Shuffler had a large room in her house with a massive filing system for any paper her students had ever used or that she might ever have a desire to use — coloring pages, worksheets, maps, lists — and again I had to walk away before I heard any more. (Do not mistakenly assume that she would ever share her vast resources with anyone else — she just wanted everyone to know that she owned it all.)
Yet another Shuffler kept obsessive amounts of detailed records of their lessons — lessons planned, lessons in progress, lessons completed, lessons graded, lessons filed away for future reference. I started out keeping moderately detailed records, but I had too much fun homeschooling my children to spend our days shuffling all those papers and writing intricately detailed records. Writing it all down would indicate that someone, somewhere, someday, might be obligated to read it. (And write yet another report on it all!) I will not be that someone. I will be outside with a flock of giggling children, covering the sidewalk in grand Seuss-ian murals with multi-colored chalk.
The Activists
Political activism can be a wonderful thing. After all, it was the foundational element of this great nation. However, I have met a few scary homeschooling families who took their political agenda to new heights. I have received phone calls from The Activists, deceptively sounding as though the purpose of the call was for homeschooling matters, only to have them suddenly turn toward political issues once they had my attention. Believe it or not, there are times when I just want to enjoy an activity with my family — without being pressured to sign a petition first.
Learning to Look Away
The Pioneers might have scared me away from homeschooling, causing me to think that I must have an enormous family to make homeschooling worthwhile, or that my homeschool would only be successful if my children were perfect models of grace and dignity at all times. I did not succumb to the implied guilt message that proper homeschoolers eat only hard, crunchy things that look like they could survive a nuclear holocaust. Their food, clothing, and lifestyle choices were really not the disturbing issues: what really bothered me was the robotic, Stepford Wives-aspect of the children’s actions (or lack of said actions). I chose, Guilt-Free, to envision that they behaved more normally at home, especially while waiting for a dawdling sibling to vacate their home’s single bathroom.
The Pusher might have scared me away from homeschooling, causing me to think that I was not doing enough activities with my children. I did not yield to her implied guilt message that the only worthwhile activities were the ones that she had chosen, and that skipping any of her chosen activities would leave my students with a woefully deficient education. While I will admit that, in the beginning, I did try some of this Pusher’s activities, I soon left her extensive list behind, Guilt-Free, in favor of things we chose ourselves.
The Dragger might have scared me away from homeschooling, causing me to think that I must do everything now. I did not give in to her implied guilt message that there is no time like the present. While some things are worth doing now, many things will still work just as well later — when my family’s schedule has more time available. I learned to give The Dragger a firm “No, thanks” and scheduled lessons and activities in accordance with our own desires, Guilt-Free.
The Goldilocks Family might have scared me away from homeschooling, causing me to think that my children should always be picture-perfect examples of cleanliness and deportment. I did not surrender to their implied guilt message that the only good child is a well-dressed, well-mannered child. God made the dirt, as well as the water, and if He chooses to bless us with rain, we should not ungratefully refuse to play in the mud. We enjoyed playing, we enjoyed nature, we enjoyed childhood, and we enjoyed occasionally being silly or muddy or messy, Guilt-Free.
The Doogie Howser Family might have scared me away from homeschooling, causing me to think that our homeschool efforts had failed if my children ever balked at doing assignments, did not beg for extra lessons, or were not ready for college before they hit their teen years. I did not submit to the implied guilt message that the only truly successful homeschooling method is one which catapults your students years ahead in academics. Lessons actually learned meant much more to us than progressing through workbooks at warp-speed. We discussed things we had learned away from the books and marveled at the simplicity of those lessons, Guilt-Free.
The Paper Shufflers might have scared me away from homeschooling, causing me to think that the only lessons that count are the ones that have been planned out on paper and produce even more papers in the form of journals, reports, or other written assignments. I did not believe their implied guilt message that the merit of a lesson is equivalent to the size of the stack of paperwork it produces. Once again, we discussed things we had learned spontaneously, away from the papers and the planning, and marveled at the simplicity of those lessons, Guilt-Free.
The Activists might have scared me away from homeschooling, causing me to think that homeschooling and political awareness must go hand in hand. I did not crumble under their implied guilt message that the only worthwhile homeschooler is a politically aggressive homeschooler. While I applauded their energy and, at times, I may even have envied their involvement in truly important issues, I eventually realized that our own non-involvement in those same issues did not demean or negate our academic efforts. When we had the time and the energy, we did support topics that we felt strongly about, but the rest of the time, we continued our schooling without petitions, telephone solicitations, or informational leaflets, Guilt-Free.
Throughout your own homeschool journey, you will very likely meet a few characters as scary as these, perhaps some who are even scarier. Do not allow them to frighten you away from your desired goal. Look the other direction, change the subject, or just walk quickly away. You are not being rude — you are rescuing someone very vital to your children’s academic future: yourself. Maintain your focus on your own homeschooling methods — the things that you know work for yourself, for your students, and for your entire family. Homeschooling methods must keep everyone relaxed and comfortable, and they must fit your family’s lifestyle in order to be Guilt-Free. Remind yourself as often as necessary that things are seldom what they seem, and realize that something very traumatic must have happened in the lives of The Scary People to send them to their extremes… and you would not want to have to go through that yourself.
How Did You Learn to Write?
June 26, 2006 by 1 Comment
The college professor handed out an in-class assignment to all of the students and then bent down near the two homeschooled students seated in the front row. Pushing their assignments aside, the professor huddled very close to them and spoke in a low voice of the type usually reserved for sharing state secrets. “How did you two learn to write?” she asked.
The two friends exchanged glances and tried to decide how to answer the unusual question. “We read a lot,” they both ventured.
“But how did you learn to write?” the professor continued, “No one else in this class can write — at least not like you two can. I know you were both homeschooled. What program did you use to learn how to write?”
The sixteen-year-old part-time college freshmen were also both still high school students at home, one a Junior and the other a Senior, and they knew that they had not actually used any specific writing curriculum. “We read a lot of books,” one repeated, “so we know what good writing should look like.” “And we learned grammar,” offered the other.
“But who evaluated your writing?” the professor kept probing.
Another glance was exchanged. “You mean… our… Moms?”
“That’s it? You read books, and that’s how you two learned to write like this? I rarely have a first-year student who can write a coherent sentence, and you two are telling me that your mothers taught you how to write this well by teaching you grammar? I am impressed!”
These two students revealed that they had learned by example: reading was their primary source for instruction in composition. Reading a variety of literature and learning the basics of grammar had set them apart from the rest of their English Composition I class and from the bulk of the students that this professor had encountered. The writing experiences of these homeschooled students prior to the college class had included writing a newspaper article and a short novel in group classes, but they had no previous exposure to analogy, comparison and contrast, or the other forms of composition introduced in this college class. Observation and imitation were their keys to success in writing: see an essay — write an essay. The quality of writing that had been observed through reading was easily reproduced in writing assignments.
My recommendation is to start your children out with phonics to teach them reading and basic spelling rules. Add in handwriting and let them practice copying anything and everything that interests them so that they can become confident in their own abilities to reproduce written material. Begin adding basic grammar rules once the students have mastered reading and add more complex rules as the students’ abilities increase. Regard vocabulary as an ever-expanding knowledge base, and use the dictionary daily to confirm suspected meanings, solidify pronunciations, and discover various word forms. Promote their consumption of all manner of reading materials, and discuss passages read to ensure comprehension of concepts and ideas, beyond mere words and sentences. Observation will lead to imitation, and the more they read, the better they will be able to imitate what they have read. Once the student has a broad background in reading a variety of materials, after he possesses a fairly substantial vocabulary, and when he has a solid foundation in grammar, then he can be expected to complete a writing assignment with proficiency.
I did not force writing assignments, such as book reports, journaling, or essays. In our past experiences, the public schools seemed to think that children should be composing stories even before they could spell simple words or form a sentence. The teachers there encouraged “creative” spelling, resulting in some rather curious inventions. If my students wanted to write something, I let them. However, with my students, that did not happen often. If ever. I did have them write thank-you notes when necessary, but that was about the extent of my imposed writing assignments. Grammar study was another story. I did insist on grammar lessons, along with lessons in fundamental spelling rules and proper use of punctuation. If you want to use a skill, you need the proper tools, and those rules are the tools needed for the skill of writing.
I did use a program during high school that taught how to read and analyze, a much-preferred alternative for us to the common creative writing programs for high school students. It was a 3-workbook set called The Elements of Clear Thinking and focused on effective communication and analyzing and revealing fallacies in reasoning. My students were not interested in writing fiction or poetry; they were much more focused on non-fiction, informational content, but not the dry reports or book reviews that usually require no critical thinking skills. The excerpts used in the Clear Thinking books came from authors, politicians, and world leaders, from magazines, newspapers, and biographies. What my students learned in those books prepared them for reading a wide variety of sources as required by their college classes and enabled them to organize their thoughts for writing logical arguments. (If you are interested in purchasing the Clear Thinking series for your high schooler, I highly recommend buying the answer keys as well.)
A student who can read fluently will be able to read a wide variety of literary forms and understand what he is reading. The more that student reads, the more that student will understand and retain about the proper structure of language. Grammar instruction will give the student opportunities to practice proper sentence construction without having to invent his own subject matter (creative writing uses entirely different skills from mere grammar practice). What the student has learned about the mechanics of written language and witnessed through first-hand observation of written language will be reproduced with proficiency. But I cannot promise that the college professors will not be baffled.
Update:
The Elements of Clear Thinking series has become a little tricky to find, so these links will show you what to look for:
The Elements of Clear Thinking: Accurate Communication
The Elements of Clear Thinking: Critical Reading
The Elements of Clear Thinking: Sound Reasoning
Note: My kids described some of the excerpts in these books as boring, confusing, or too intellectual, and I agreed. As a substitute for the more complicated passages, we went to the library and found long magazine articles covering topics that were more interesting (one article had to be at least 6 pages long for an amount of text comparable to the longest excerpt). The details are more fully explained in Kids Will Be Kids.
Teach Your Children the Art of Amusing Themselves
June 19, 2006 by 3 Comments
“I’m bored.” “Mommy, come play with me.” Have you heard these laments lately? By teaching your children to enjoy a variety of “by-myself” activities, you can prevent the incessant whining, cure the boredom, and gain a tiny bit of free time for yourself. You will also be fostering independence in your children by teaching them the basics of teaching themselves.
Your time, Mom, is too valuable to be spent merely entertaining your children. Individual entertainment is a skill very valuable in homeschooling. A student of any age needs to be able to learn on his own, and solitary time is the ideal situation in which to practice independent study. Once they have acquired interest in a few solo activities, your students can entertain themselves while you tend to their siblings, to your housework, or to your own leisure pursuits. They can begin to see the advantages of striving to complete their schoolwork quickly in order to return to their own recreational activities. Children who learn how to entertain themselves will be much more content personally and able to adapt to new circumstances better than will their counterparts who rely on others for entertainment.
Just as some tiny tots need to be spoon-fed the first bite or two of a new food before taking over to feed themselves, some children may need guidance in learning to play by themselves. Start an activity with them, and then slowly wean yourself away from the action: dump out a 100-piece jigsaw puzzle, and get Sammy started on assembling the easy border pieces while you sort out the pieces for a few main elements in the puzzle. (Do not assemble the parts completely, just sort or put a few pieces together to help Sammy along. This is the all-important “teaser” stage: you want to make it irresistible for Sammy to finish the puzzle.) Before long, Sammy will be engrossed in his task with enough confidence to carry him through, and you can excuse yourself to shuffle the laundry, promising to check on his progress later (then be sure that you do come back to praise him). Sometimes, Mom or an older sibling may need to give a few quick lessons in a new activity, but the real learning sets in when the child begins to explore a craft or leisure pursuit on his own. Be sure to praise the child for his time dedicated to working alone, and show him how valuable the skills are that he is developing.
Consider these leisure pursuits that work well as independent activities:
–jigsaw puzzles
–crossword & other word puzzles
–sudoku & other number/logic puzzles
–solitaire card games
–sewing, crocheting, knitting & other needle arts
–painting & drawing
–whittling & woodworking
–Lego’s & other construction toys
–building models
–gardening
–reading
–bicycling, rollerblading, & other individual sports
–(what can you add to this list?)
On one particularly lazy day when my children were small, we had picnicked at a city park and the children were growing bored with the playground equipment. With too much month left at the end of the money, we were seeking no-cost diversions, but boredom was overtaking the usual ideas. As we sat at a picnic table discussing what else we could do for the day, I picked up a handful of the small stones and pea gravel that covered the playground surface. Fingering the tiny rocks led to watching them tumble across each other. Before long, we had stumbled upon a new and challenging game: Rock Stacking. We spent the next hour stacking up the pebbles and seeing who could create the tallest stacks. Height was replaced by quantity as we began counting who could stack the most rocks before their stack toppled over. Soon other children had joined us and we had several families involved with our new game, all cheering each other’s accomplishments. Steady hands were as valuable as a sharp eye for spotting flat surfaces on the rocks, and all participants had to be careful not to jiggle the table and send everyone’s stack back to the starting line. It was a wonderfully enjoyable afternoon that I will not soon forget, especially the amazement on the faces of the children we did not know, who begged to be included in our fun — with not a penny of expenditure to anyone. I am sure that none of those other children would ever previously have considered joining a friend who asked, “Hey, want to go stack rocks?”
As they grow into adults, the inventiveness and creativity that has been developed through individual activities and solo entertainment will show forth in the ability to provide cheap (or free) alternatives to eating out or going to movies. Children who have grown up constantly being entertained by their parents or older siblings have little imagination for how to spend “down time,” so they continue to seek someone to entertain them and need a constant flurry of activity to keep them happy (usually at considerable financial cost). My daughter’s college friends quickly ran out of money and ideas for recreation, prompting the invention of her Shopping Trip Bingo game, an exercise in no-cost entertainment. We have often gone on short nature hikes as a family, and our children have continued their love of that no-cost activity by taking special friends back to our favorite lake for quiet walks and peaceful getaways.
To paraphrase an old saying, “If you give a man a fish, that man knows where to go to get fish.” So if you consistently entertain your children when they are bored, your children will always know whom to go to for entertainment. However, a child who can occupy himself with satisfying leisure activities is learning hobbies that will last a lifetime. The more he explores and learns on his own, the more he hones his skills for teaching himself — skills valuable for homeschooling and for continuing his education throughout life. Any time that you spend in teaching your child a solitary activity (knitting, for example), will be returned to you in multiplied hours that you can dedicate to other pursuits while your child carries on independent activities. Not every child can automatically see how to entertain himself, some need more guidance than others, and a few will continue to need Mom’s approval and encouragement from time to time, but a child who learns to amuse himself will be opening the door to a world full of knowledge and adventure.
Guilt-Free Homeschooling is the creation of Carolyn Morrison and her daughter, Jennifer Leonhard. After serious disappointments with public school, Carolyn spent the next 11 years homeschooling her two children, from elementary to high school graduation and college admission. Refusing to force new homeschooling families to re-invent the wheel, Carolyn and Jennifer now share their encouragement, support, tips, and tricks, filling their blog with "all the answers we were looking for as a new-to-homeschooling family" and making this website a valuable resource for parents, not just a daily journal. Guilt-Free Homeschooling -- Equipping Parents for Homeschooling Success!
Recent Comments