They say that Abraham Lincoln was a self-taught man. He read through the entire Bible and any other books he could get his hands on. This speaks volumes about the importance of reading. If you could do nothing else for your child, educationally-speaking, it should be to develop a strong, voracious reader.
Once a child has mastered reading and is continually challenged with diverse and increasingly difficult selections, he can successfully educate himself about almost anything simply through reading. What an amazing concept - reading teaches your child how to teach himself! Producing this type of a reader takes some careful planning however. I have found that modern literature that is aimed at children is quite often "dumbed-down" and assumes that we shouldn't tax our children's brains too much - what a silly notion! Challenging our children to think hard while reading is a good thing. It exercises the mind, broadens ones vocabulary and improves their writing and communication skills.
Tips on Forming a Strong Reader
Limit television, computer and video game time (we have a weekends only rule in our house, for instance). I cannot stress enough how important this is. Not only will your child choose video or TV over reading, because they are instant gratification and require no serious thinking, but too much electronic entertainment, especially in a developing brain, is proven to be detrimental to developing good reading skills. Give your child a mix of books to read at different reading levels. If all of the books you give your child are very challenging, he may get too frustrated and not want to read at all. It is a good idea to give your child a quality book that is comfortable at his reading level and then the next book should be one level up from there, enough to challenge him a bit.
Alternate and mix things up a bit in this fashion while gradually advancing the overall difficulty level. Develop a list of books that you know are good quality literature on the subjects you are wanting to cover with your child and don't forget to throw some in some just for fun reading as well, and then let your child choose the books from this list to make up his reading syllabus for the year. It will give your child a sense of control instead of "mom's making me read this."
Putting it all together
If you decide to make your homeschooling program literature-based,here are some good places to look for planning inspiration.
Sonlight Curriculum: I have never purchased a curriculum package from them but they are a great resource for helping choose books. Browse through their selections by grade level to get ideas
Beautiful Feet: They provide literature-based unit studies.
Books Children Love by Elizabeth Wilson: This reference gives a listing of books divided by subject (historical fiction, fantasy, literature, etc.) and also reading level.
I also like to use Amazon.com as it has good descriptions of books and helpful recommendations of other books that might interest you. Take the time to form a competent, strong reader and your child will easily be tackling Shakespeare, Herman Melville and G.K. Chesterton in their highschool years and thanking you for it.
Jeanette Steiner is a single homeschooling mom who has been teaching her (7) children for 11 years. To read more informative articles with tips and advice like the ones in this article, please click here: http://www.completehomeschoolcurriculum.com
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