Creating a Love for Learning in Your Home School, Part II
By Donna Reish
There are still many more tips and strategies for helping children love to learn-and love home schooling. Of course, not any one of these ideas works alone. It is a mindset - a way of life, if you will, that causes children to love learning. Adapting some of these strategies is a step toward putting on that mindset.
Read aloud from the beginning.
If you have not been a read-aloud home schooler, it is never too late to begin. If your students are older (junior high and high school), you might have to dangle a deeper colored orange carrot (along with some ranch dip) in front of them to get them to enjoy reading aloud together, but it won’t take long…and it will certainly be worth it!
There are complete books available telling how to begin reading aloud, good books to choose at various ages and stages, and more (such as The Read Aloud Handbook by Jim Trelease or Honey for a Child’s Heart), so I won’t go into much detail here; however, if you have boys and/or older children, start with adventure - educational can come later! The first goal in reading aloud is to make your children love reading aloud. If they don’t love read aloud time, you will not do it regularly-and all of the great goals and objectives of reading aloud will never be seen anyway.
Some people ruin "read aloud" by trying to make it to "schoolish." I can remember when, fresh out of teacher’s college, every part of my little two year old’s story time became a possible "reading comprehension lesson." (Of course, I have since learned that those are not true reading comprehension lessons but rather just "quizzing sessions" - which have their place to "assess" or "test" comprehension-but they definitely do not "teach" comprehension - unless they are followed by discussion.) Anyway, my little guy just wanted me to read the story already! He didn’t care if he knew the minor character’s name-nor if he knew the motivation (for a two year old!?) of the major character. Enjoy the process. Yes, discuss it (far better for building comprehension than simply quizzing your students). Yes, talk about why this happened or that happened, cause and effect, how the character felt, whether his responses were Biblical, etc. - but not all the time-and certainly not after each paragraph! These things will usually come naturally if your children are enjoying their read aloud time. It will become just like a good movie - everyone discussing it around the dinner table, in the car, or at Grandma’s.
If it’s just adventure you are after (with a good dose of Christianity thrown in), you might start with Frank Peretti’s junior novels, Cooper Kids Adventure Series an Indiana Jones-style Christian family series. If you have boys ages six to fourteen, it’s never the wrong decade for The Sugar Creek Gang series - a series of very Christian, very adventuresome books set in the 1930’s and 1940’s. If you have reluctant female read-alouders, you might try Grandma’s Attic books-sort of a Christian Anne of Green Gables style series. For younger listeners, our personal favorite is The Boxcar Children, in which a secular family of four parentless siblings lives with their grandfather and show more character than most "Christian" children books. If you want your read aloud time to be more academic, you might try the G.A. Henty books - historical fiction; more spiritual, try God’s Smuggler, The Hiding Place, or Joni. (I highly recommend the last three for family devotions, assignments for high school students, etc.)
If the thought of sitting still while Mom reads aloud makes everyone feel a boredom attack (or in Dad, a sleeping attack) coming on, you might consider allowing them to do something quiet while you read. Our older children often quilt, do handwork, or other non-thinking activities while I read. Our little guys usually do puzzles, build with Legoes, or sort Legoes. Many times, Dad will do something quietly with the little ones while we read, so their hands and minds are engaged in something. (Currently, this is a one thousand piece Civil War puzzle.)
Make time for the important things.
Sometimes the difference between read aloud success and failure is timing. The same is true of many home learning adventures. We learned fifteen years ago from Gregg Harris at one of his workshops that the way to be sure something is done in your school is to attach it to something you always do. Of course, his main suggestion here was attaching things to mealtimes, since seldom do we miss that event! Anyway, attach your family read aloud time - or any important learning or devotional activity - to something already in your schedule all of the time: rising time, breakfast, lunch, dinner, or bedtime are all good choices.
We began following Mr. Harris’ rule of thumb when our first couple of children were little, and soon had attached everything important to something in their schedule, then had attachments to our attachments until each day was one big, well, attachment. It was a great rule of thumb for us as new parents, and it provided a stable, scheduled environment for our preschoolers, toddlers, and babies. They always knew what to expect.
For added incentive, you might follow our family’s more-often-than-not rule: If an activity is important to us (devotions, memory work, discipleship meetings with children, read aloud time, etc.), we should do that activity more often than we do not. If our occurrences of an event do not exceed our skipped times of an event, then it isn’t very important to us (if we plan to do something four times a week but only do it once). (It’s not a real priority in our lives.) It either needs moved up in our priority list or dropped-and we need to be honest with ourselves that it really isn’t a priority.
This guideline has become especially important to us as our children have gotten older, and they are away from home more and more for college classes, music lessons, and other special classes (foreign languages, debate, etc.). It is so easy during these years to just give up "family learning together" time - simply because it seems impossible with everyone’s busy schedules. "More often than not" has given us the security that we are, indeed, doing what is important to us, but yet it is not legalistic or burdensome. (I might note here that many things that are important to us are now done in a moving vehicle going to and from church, potlucks, debate and speech tournaments, conventions, visiting relatives, etc.!)
Evaluate often
A big part of creating a love for learning is evaluating what works and what doesn’t for your family. For years and year, I wanted to do everything just like other successful families I saw. While I believe that copying after someone else is the highest form of admiration, and I believe that we can learn a lot by emulating others, we cannot get stuck in the rut of doing what others do regardless of whether it works for our particular family or not.
Specifically, I remember putting a lot of pressure on my husband to get up earlier and do more school with the children, especially Bible studies and character studies, since that is what I saw other families doing. Never mind the fact that he was nearly always up late one-on-one with our older children, discipling and mentoring them. Never mind the fact that he worked sixty hours a week at his job. He wasn’t doing things the way I wanted him to do them and the way I saw others doing them.
I have since learned that yes, I can gain much from observing and modeling after others who are successful in various areas of parenting and home schooling, but if it doesn’t work for our family (due to time constraints, job restrictions, ages of children, interests of children, etc.), then it just isn’t for us. I don’t have to make my husband fit into a mold of what I see someone else’s husband doing. I don’t have to schedule my school day just like another mom does. And my children do not have to be just like other children.
Thus, we need to evaluate often. Is what we are doing here really working? Is this causing our children to learn---and love to learn? Could something else work better? Am I trying to make my school like someone else’s-even if it is not the best for us? Of course, part of that evaluation may be observing another family, asking questions, and trying something new that you think will work. However, if it doesn’t work, be willing to re-evaluate and try something else.
Skip the good to do the best
With that evaluation process comes what to do once you have evaluated something: skipping the good to do the best. Twenty-one years ago when I began home schooling my sister, home schooling was in its infancy in Indiana. We attended the first state convention with just a handful of us. We could only get materials from Dr. Raymond Moore-or leftover from a Christian school. You whispered the answer when someone asked you where your children went to school. And, we had visits from those people most hoosier home schoolers never see today - social worker, principal, school counselor, and more.
Yet there were many positive aspects of those early days of home schooling - deep camaraderie among the few brave home schoolers that existed, long days at home (without dozens of activities screaming at me to participate!), a more laid back approach (since there was no "parental peer pressure" to be or do more and more), etc. Even having a small number of choices wasn’t always bad.
Now, nearly daily, we home schoolers (especially in such a home school-friendly state as Indiana) are faced with so many choices. Activities, sports, and curricula abound. It is very difficult to decide (especially with many children of many ages) what is the very best for our families.
Today, more than ever, it is vital that we evaluate our school, extra curricular, sports, church, youth, and music activities. We could easily spend every day running only a couple of children to activities, much less than the six I have in school this year! We can (and I have) easily "school" until five or six each evening, trying to fit in all the wonderful materials available.
I realize this evaluation process is highly personal; however, we have found some methodology to our evaluation process that others (especially large families) may benefit from as well. One of our first benchmarks for evaluation is, of course, our relationship with the Lord. Does this activity/curriculum enhance our relationship with the Lord? Obviously, there are many things that must be learned that do not have much spiritual content - math, foreign languages, etc. If those things do not interfere with our walks with the Lord by consuming too much time away from Him or our family and they fall under another criterion we have developed (such as preparing for the future), then, of course, we include those things.
Secondly, does it benefit a large number of our family? I realize those with less children may not need to ask this question, but for us, when we had six children twelve and under, each child got to be in one thing (basketball and piano, at that time), and other than that, we did things the whole family could do-such as family roller skating, field trips, hospitality with whole families, etc. It was a wonderful time for our family that I look back on with fond memories. Now, with older children, we are somewhat divided in this area. We still try to do things altogether whenever possible, but we prefer to do many things that at least our three teenage daughters can do together (they love learning together!) or that our three young sons can be in together.
Thirdly, does it build or tear down family unity? This goes somewhat with the second benchmark and may not have a lot to do with a love of learning (although I could probably easily find many connections if I pondered it long enough), but it has always been an important benchmark for us. Too many outside influences, too much peer interaction (especially too early), and too much busy-ness away from the family seems to pull our children away from us and their siblings. We also watch out for these things.
Next, does it prepare our children for a future we think God is leading them into? A few years ago, I jumped on the musical bandwagon. Our daughters all played piano, and each of them took at least one more instrument. Now, don’t get me wrong. Music playing is great, but it is definitely not for everyone. I saw successful families around me all playing instruments together, and I thought we had to do the same thing. We spent a lot of time and a lot of money pursuing something that the girls really weren’t interested in. This activity did not prepare them for their futures; it didn’t give them an area of education they really needed; it didn’t increase family unity; it didn’t help them spiritually. Our daughters are writers and speakers. We now put our time and effort into those areas as we feel that those things help prepare them for the futures God has for them. (For others, it will not be writing or speaking, but it will be music.)
Lastly, is it something our students are interested in? I know for us, our children’s love of learning has always increased when we studied things they were interested in learning. (See next month for more on this!) Every family’s priorities and circumstances will be different - and each family’s "good" and "best" will be different, but we all need to be in the evaluation process at all times. Here at the Reish home, we often find ourselves immersed in "good" things instead of the "best" things. Our evaluation benchmarks help us narrow down our curricula, activities, family life, and more to be focused on the "best"!
Watch the next Informer for more tips for creating a love for learning - and a love for home schooling - in your family.