Believing in Unschooling, Part 2

Continuing with the discussion on reading from Part 1, I wonder sometimes what would have happened if I had known more about unschooling and had let the process develop organically. Everything was going fine in the beginning. I took my cues from Beezy, answering her questions about what letter a word started with. I would tell her both the sound and letter name. We had Leap Frog alphabet refrigerator magnets, and we used Montessori sandpaper letters and shaving cream tracing for learning the sounds with lower case letters. I disagree with those who advocate starting with capitals, because most of the text we read is in lower case. Making words with letter tiles and blending letters together to sound words out was fun.

Then I hit a road block with the beginning readers I could find, because they used so many sight words which could not be sounded out. A friend suggested BOB books from Scholastic, which use small, phonetic words (3 or 4 letters), and only gradually add a few sight words. This is the part where I feel guilty. Things started out promising with these books, but then there were issues. Beezy struggled so much with sounding words out. She did progress, though slowly and painstakingly, and I became frustrated. I made her read for too long at first, but eventually I realized, thanks to Charlotte Mason, that lessons should be short; so Beezy only had to read half a book at a time. Even so, reading became not so fun for either of us.

However, I did not continue what was clearly not working. The BOB books were not only uninteresting, but the pictures were horrible, and Beezy's artistic sensibilities were terribly insulted. As I have written before, I finally pulled out our 12 book set of Dick and Jane readers, and she loved them! Allelujah!! I don't care what anyone says about Dick and Jane being dumbed down and repetitive. The repetition worked for Beezy, and finally her reading skills took off. The pictures are great, and somehow, inexplicably, the stories were engaging. Never question God's grace--just go with it. From there I found the Ginn readers from the same era on Ebay, so we have been able to continue along with books that are similar in style to Dick and Jane, with increasing levels of difficulty. For a long time I still required phonetic words to be sounded out and would simply tell Beezy what sight words said. Once I was bitten by the unschooling bug, I understood the rationale for not forcing the painful experience of making her sound out the words. But like I said, I began to doubt the process.

I think that since Beezy can sound out words well enough, I should have her do more reading to herself. She can come to me if she doesn't know a word. If I'm not sitting right beside her, she will likely figure most words out on her own. Too much hovering is a bad thing. A couple of weeks ago Beezy told me that her piano teacher got a phone call during her lesson, and Beezy said she played so much better without her teacher watching her! She told me the same thing during practice yesterday at home. I will try just getting her started and then leave the room to let her practice. More and more I see the wisdom in not interfering too much in the child's learning process.

Unschooled children learn to read when they are ready. They may ask to learn to read or do it spontaneously at any age--4, 8, or 10--and suffer no ill effects from either learning early or late. They end up being avid, proficient readers. I proceeded with teaching reading when I did, because Beezy showed readiness in learning letter sounds. She was asking for help, so I don't think we started the basics too soon. But what if, when the BOB books were not working, I had simply backed off reading lessons and waited to see if Beezy would figure it out on her own? Or if I had just left reading alone for a few months and then come back to it? At least as a homeschooling mother, I had the time and the interest to try different things until I found something that worked. I trusted my intuition.

I still worry. That's a mom's job to a certain extent. We need to trust in the guidance of the Holy Spirit, though, and rest with confidence under Mary's mantle. She holds our children there too.

Our Lady of Guadalupe with Child

A New Homeschooling Year!

I am planning to begin our homeschooling year tomorrow, Tuesday, August 21!  My husband will start his first day of teaching college for the semester, so it will be nice and quiet in our home.  My intentions are very focused this year on using the Charlotte Mason method, in a relaxed homeschooling environment, so I will post regularly on what books and materials we are using. Hopefully this will provide others who are inclined toward Charlotte Mason with some ideas, and I hope readers will comment with ideas of their own! For this method can seem intimidating, because it does not rely on a set curriculum purchased from a company.

The Charlotte Mason method, to me, is about natural family living.  Its tenets are living books and narration, nature studies, the formation of habits that lead to self-discipline, auto-education (basically, self teaching), and the use of a broad and generous curriculum.  There is structure in this method, and it does not fall under the category of unschooling.  Formal studies are traditionally finished by 1:00 p.m., with the afternoons free for doing hand crafts, spending time outdoors, being together as a family, and exploring personal interests. The spiritual growth of the child is on an equal par with academic development.

We will be focusing especially upon reading, so this will be the top priority.  While other subjects will not be neglected, I will be more relaxed in what we cover.  We use a multi-subject BrainQuest  workbook curriculum (available at Target for $10); otherwise, our resources come from "living books", which include classic and high quality literature as well as books written by a person who is passionate about his subject and provides the pertinent information in story form.  In other words, dry textbooks are very much not Charlotte Mason! Much of what we use comes from the library.  I have purchased some materials from Ebay and from a local education store.

Since Beezy, age 8, loved the Dick and Jane readers, we will progress using the similar Ginn readers, beginning with Under the Apple Tree.  We will also continue using Beatrix Potter's books, implementing sight reading primarily. The Ginn books will be a combination of sounding out words and the sight reading that naturally occurs by the pattern of repetition used in these readers. The BrainQuest pages will provide practice in phonics and spelling.  Charlotte Mason advocated beginning sight reading as soon as the basics of phonics have been learned, because this is where the art of reading truly happens.

She did not believe in ever using "twaddle" written for children which consists of only 3 and 4 letter words and the forced creation of sentences with obvious word families (ie. cat, sat, and bat all in one sentence)--sorry, Dr. Seuss! I can attest to Charlotte's wisdom in this, because the BOB readers by Scholastic that we started with were just such books, and they were laborious to read and a big flop with Beezy!  Long words are delicious to children, and the number of letters in a word should be of no consequence.  In fact, longer words typically have more easily distinguished patterns than words that are short and very similar to one another (ie. what and went).  And the recognition of sight words is encouraging to children, rather than having to sound out each and every word.  Decoding is a building block, but it is not, in itself, actually reading.


Following Beezy's interests, she will begin to learn cursive writing this year! Since her printing is very neat, I believe she has the fine motor skills for cursive.  But we will still continue to practice printing skills, especially since she needs a little more experience with some of the capital letters.

For literature we will continue with the Narnia series by C.S. Lewis that we began over the summer. We are almost finished with Prince Caspian.  I read these books to her, and beginning with the next one in the series, she will narrate back to me every few pages or after each chapter. This takes the place of tiresome questions, allowing the child to make the story her own, and giving the teacher a true idea of the child's comprehension.

For history I will be reading The Earthshapers by Karen Speerstra to her, which is a story about a Native American girl of the Mound Builders, which include the Hopewell, who lived, among other places, in our state of Ohio.  For natural sciences we are studying the ecosystem of the rainforest, and our first book is actually a video of The Shaman's Apprentice by Lynn Cherry.  Both of these subjects will also be narrated.

For math we will continue learning to tell time, using a clock with moveable hands as well as BrainQuest pages.  And every day we will use a Melissa and Doug magnetic calendar and the song, "Days of the Week."  After some review with addition and subtraction, we will begin multiplication. We will also continue our study of fractions begun last year. I use an abacus and Montessori bead materials for math, as well as fractions manipulatives.  It is very important that the foundations of math be very concrete, rather than based merely upon the abstraction of symbols.  One should be able to touch math!

Soccer practice begins tomorrow, so that covers gym, and if we have time, we will begin a needlecraft project for children that I found at JoAnn Fabric.  I also got one for myself so that we can learn together!  And right there is the beauty of homeschooling--learning together and creating a unique family lifestyle that nurtures the spirits of all those living under our roof!

Small Town Homesteading

This being the last day of July, it will soon be time to get "back to school" and to a more structured daily routine.  My husband, a college professor off work for the summer, will begin teaching again in a few weeks.  I spent some time ordering books from the library today on rainforests, which will be our first science unit for this homeschooling year.  I also have two Ginn Basic Readers that I ordered from Ebay.  Beezy, now 8 years old, loved the 12-book Dick and Jane series, and I wanted to find something similar with which to continue.  This is especially because other readers had failed to interest Beezy, and I want her to love to read.  The Ginn books have a similar, repetitious style and old-fashioned illustrations, being from the same era as Dick and Jane. 

Fall is also typically designated as a season of new beginnings, even though it's the last season of the year.  It's a time of vibrant, visible change in the natural world, a celebration of the harvest, and a time of turning inward in preparation for the coming days of darkness.  There is a magical whispering of possibility and mystery in the air.  So I am naturally starting to contemplate things I want to do differently.  The end of summer boredom and restlessness is starting to settle in already, maybe because spring came so early this year.  

I changed the look of this blog today and tweaked the topics to reflect my new focus: Charlotte Mason homeschooling, small town homesteading, belly dance, style & beauty, and sacred living.  Not all is completely new.  For instance, I have been using the Charlotte Mason homeschooling method since the beginning, but I also used a lot of Montessori.  This year there will be less emphasis on the Montessori Method and more emphasis on Charlotte Mason's living books, narration, nature notebook, and other elements of her method.  I want to spend way more time exploring the natural world, and I want to incorporate hand crafts.  I loved latch hook kits as a child, and I am going to introduce them to Beezy this year.  I also want to continue her sewing lessons with her great-grandmother.

I desire a deepening of the homesteading way of life for my family as well.  But I find that when we get these wonderful visions in our heads, we want to overhaul everything and make radical, sudden changes, which usually don't pan out.  So I'm simply going to start with baking my own bread and pizza crusts this fall, and I have an aunt that wants to teach me to crochet.  Baby steps on the homestead!  I want to take family bike rides in the evenings, and hopefully we'll have a good tomato crop this year for making my husband's awesome homemade sauce.  

Here's to the joy of beginning fresh plans, dreaming a little dream, and keeping it simple--and then reaping the grand harvest of the organic life!