By Mimi Rothschild
Home school parents know when their children are ready to read by observing, participating, and encouraging their development from a very early age. Home school parents interact with their children on a daily basis, open to their curiosity and supportive of their initiative. Since each child is different in personality and aptitude, only the home school parents can determine when is the right time.
Home school children will begin to take an interest in the words they see in their home school environment, the ones in books, newspapers, and magazines. They will be interested in the words and pictures on boxes, envelopes, and letters. Home school children will ask, “What is that? What does that say? The home school parent has the time to carefully explain the labels, the addresses, and the words to them. The first step in learning to read begins with the sounds of individual letters. The home school child learns to read by repeating and remembering what he hears. There can never be too much repetition of sounds and words.
Books with pictures are fascinating to the home school child. They begin to ask questions about each picture and soon learn the meaning of each one. The young home school child will try at an early age to tell a story in his own words, partially remembering the sounds he’s heard and later identifying the words he reads. Parents of home school children can help them learn to read with cutout or magnetic alphabet letters and building blocks. The home school child will soon learn that A is for apple, remember the sound, and associate the sound with the word.
Read anything and everything to your home school child. There are games that the home school family will enjoy playing, such as Hangman and Scrabble, which will help your children learn to read. Introduce your child to the library and make it a part of your home school activities. He or she will be excited to have his own card and books to bring home, just like Mom and Dad. Crossword puzzles are excellent tools for furthering reading, and vocabulary, skills. Reading can be a quiet pastime when the home school family reads together or alone, at times sharing what they read with each other.
Who wants to be a reader? We all do and teaching your child how to read in home school will open a brand new world of knowledge, adventure, and fun.
By Mimi Rothschild
If the thought of teaching your children in homeschool appeals to you, but you are afraid that you may not have what it takes, think again. It is easy to feel intimidated when you see another homeschooler doing everything right, teaching his or her children so well that they are thriving and excelling in every subject. What you may not realize, however, is that all homeschool parents usually start out feeling a little apprehensive about what they will be attempting to do. Most people grew up going to public school, and were taught to believe that a good education can only be had by adhering to the rules and curriculum of the public school system. It is hard to dispel these notions and learn that as a parent you can be your child’s best teacher, and your home can be his or her most effective school.
It does take organization and planning to be a homeschooler – there is no argument there. However, if you stop and take stock of how successful you are in other areas of your life, you will realize that homeschool is simply another challenge that you are perfectly capable of meeting. If you run a household, manage bills, help run church activities, etc, then you know how to organize and plan already. Planning your children’s homeschool curriculum and organizing your children’s homeschool days are tasks that you have the skills to accomplish.
You may worry that you simply don’t know enough to be effective as a homeschool teacher. Although it’s true that public school teachers have to obtain a college degree in order to be able to teach, this doesn’t mean that they are the only ones who are capable of doing so. One of the biggest problems these days with the public school system is the “categorizing” of children into groups, bypassing the individual attention that every child needs to get the most from his or her education. Your advantage is that you know your child better than anyone else, and in homeschool you can focus on your child’s personality and develop a curriculum that takes advantage of his or her particular learning style. Your homeschool child will learn at his or her own pace, and will be exposed to aspects of learning that public schools simply cannot provide.
You can be a homeschooler. All it takes is a little planning, a little organization, and the desire to give your children the best education possible.
By Mimi Rothschild
Parents consider homeschooling their children for a myriad of reasons, and you might also be thinking about turning your own child into a homeschooler. Perhaps you’ve always wanted to homeschool to control the atmosphere, curriculum and teaching style; perhaps you’ve become disillusioned with the public education system. There are plenty of reasons to choose homeschooling as a positive alternative for educating your kids.
First of all, studies point to evidence that children who are tutored do better academically than their peers in traditional school settings. Socially, children in a homeschool are actually protected from the potentially negative influences in a public classroom, and homeschool parents can still take measures to ensure their children interact with others in healthy and controlled environments. Another reason to homeschool your children is to develop and strengthen family relationships. Parents who teach their children and siblings who learn side by side grow together and learn to appreciate and respect each other more because of the quality time they are spending together. In addition, choosing and creating a homeschool environment allows the parents to help their children grow spiritually. Through a homeschool environment, parents are able to teach their homeschoolers ethics, morality and biblical principles as well as character growth, and give them the chance to study the Bible directly.
However, probably the best reason for Christians to choose to homeschool their children is because homeschooling is modeled in Scripture. The Bible asks parents to commit to raising and teaching their children in all areas and at all ages. Fathers are given the primary responsibility, but mothers are also required to raise and teach their children God’s commandments. Parents, as the child’s closest and constant companions, are also meant to teach about God at each given opportunity — anywhere, anytime; not just in a classroom from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. Monday to Friday. This is why a homeschool environment is so conducive to living, learning and teaching the way God intended — parents can create their own homeschool according to God’s design.
The first and foremost component of study in a homeschool should be the Bible, or the true Word of God — the lens through which all believers need to view the world and everything in it. The second component of study in a homeschool is everything the Lord has created, which includes subjects like mathematics, history, science, geography, art, music and languages. Many homeschool parents decide to forego the methods regular schools take and study these subjects using a “unit-study” approach, which considers the relationship between all the subjects and how God views them.
If you’re considering homeschooling your children in a Christian environment, it’s important to keep in mind that the ultimate goal of home education is not merely academic or social preparedness but also character training — for the children as students as well as for the parents as teachers –that they would all grow together from simply a homeschool family to a family that is pleasing and honoring to God.
By Mimi Rothschild
A homeschool is both an institutition and an activity which encompasses interactive learning and communication. In a homeschool, children get to balance their academic education with extracurricular activities like dramatics and sports. In the same breath, one can say that running home school is a thrilling, self-satisfying but at the same time a busy activity for parents as well as children. The key to successful learning is the right kind of communication.
Does communication have to be present only when you are imparting education? What about listening and having a heart to heart conversation between the parent and the home school student? It is a common norm for parents to believe that such kind of “family discussions” should happen at the dinner table. So when the clock chimes at six, everyone is expected to assemble at the dinner table and talk about the day’s activities and what plans they have for the following days to come.
Though a family meal is a good idea, it has been observed that such dinner table discussions used to work well during the past. However in today’s world where life is quite hectic and people are constantly on the ‘move’, it is quite difficult to arrange a dinner table family discussion at a given point in time. Also as home school children grow up, they get busy with a lot of activities. They have to study or go for their choir practice, hit the gym or do part time jobs. So it is not just that traditional school students have no time to be present at the dinner table during the scheduled hour. Even home school children at times, find it difficult to be a part of the dinner-table meeting ritual as they have to accommodate to their busy schedule. It is not that home school children do not value time with their parents. It is just that they get involved in some activity or program that makes it difficult to take time out for a family meeting.
No doubt a family meeting and a heart to heart conversation is quite important. So, how do you create a win-win situation where you do not disturb the schedule of your home school child and also at the same time make the family meeting a certainty? To begin with, the home school parent should not be rigid about the family meeting schedule. The point is not to have the family meeting at a certain point in time, but to spend quality time with your family.
Quality time does not solely mean a family dinner at six. Think beyond the dinner table. Similarly family functions should also not be an excuse for planning a family meeting. Consider planning a family meeting on a weekly basis involving your home school children. At the start of the week, you should discuss with your spouse and home school children and arrange for everybody to meet at home on a specific day at a specific time at least, once a week. Be open to last minute changes like an illness or a sudden trip which a family member has to make. However you should choose a day which is least like to conflict any busy schedule.
Create a warm, lovable, humorous and a vibrant atmosphere. The homeschool child should be so charged up after the meeting that he or she should be ready to be a part of the next meeting with a lot of enthusiasm. During the family meeting, the homeschool child gets to learn a lot from the parents and the elders. They should provide a good example to the home school children by inculcating rules of good conversation. They should not speak out of turn. They should listen first and then only express their point of view without offending sentiments of others. Homeschool children who are very young may not have much to say. However you should make them present during the meeting. They can have a small room where they can play quietly. Over the years these small home school children will soon find their way into the hall where the meeting takes place and participate in the conversation. The family meeting is also one of the best ways to plan the home school schedule and family plans for the coming weeks and months.
By Mimi Rothschild
Setting up a home school for your child gives you a great deal of flexibility. You not only get the opportunity to choose what to include in your home school curriculum and when to schedule any particular lesson, you also get to maximize your child’s learning. In order to maximize your child’s learning experience in your home school, it is important to recognize the difference between teaching and learning and how you can teach your child to learn.
Teaching conjures up images of a parent, teacher, professor, pastor, or other learned person dispensing specific information to a group of learners. The group of learners is generally young, but not always. The teacher is speaking and the group is theoretically listening, understanding, and learning. However, in real life, this is not how people learn, especially children. Your home school gives you the power to break this mold and allow your child to learn in a way in which he will absorb the most knowledge that you, your home school curriculum, and the world has to offer.
Of course, common sense should tell you that the traditional teacher/student model that is employed in most traditional schools doesn’t pass muster. If you take a moment to recall your own experiences as a student in a traditional school, you will remember a fair amount of note passing, doodling, and daydreaming. If you were like most students, whatever the teacher was saying didn’t much interest you, and you learned by cramming for tests to get good grades to keep your own parents off your case. By setting up a home school for your child, you have the opportunity to rectify this situation, to teach your kids in the way that you wish you were taught. Home school gives your child the chance to expand her mind through the process of discovery and experimentation and not just through dry book learning.
When your kids are in home school, you don’t need to make them read dry history books. You can take them to local museums, show them interesting films and movies, and have them create projects so that they will really absorb the lesson. Your home school curriculum can include trips to the nature center, zoos, and aquariums. Instead of reading about fish and plants and animals, you can teach your child about the natural world through experiencing nature. Home school allows your child the chance to discover and absorb, so that she remembers what she is taught and can build on that knowledge through the years, instead of having to relearn the same set of boring facts every single year, as is the norm in traditional school.