Home school Curriculum Questions



What about teaching reading?

We've had a child who read at sixteen months, and others who began learning at three or four years old. The important thing is that you don't rush your child beyond what he or she is capable of. Keep the lessons short and rewarding one page at a time is often a good starting point for a youngster. If your child is under five years old and ready to start reading, then we suggest The Reading Lesson with its friendly format and slower, easy pace. If he is more than five years old, then we suggest Phonics Pathways it is more complete and gives a solid phonics foundation. (A five-year-old can go either way, depending on his abilities and interest level.)

Which history program do you recommend?

We have selected what we feel are the two finest history programs available: The Story of the World and The Mystery of History. Which one works best for you depends on your family. The Story of the World begins at a first- through fourth-grade level and grows with your child as he progresses through the series. If you have a bunch of little ones who would learn well with a story and worksheet/project style, then this is the program for you. The Mystery of History series is deliberately designed to accommodate a wider age group the core is designed for grades four through eight, with suggestions included for teaching to older or younger students. The Mystery of History is also laid out with the beginning homeschooler in mind. This series provides instruction, reassurance, and support for parents, while providing tremendous flexibility to meet your needs as a family. We have also found that The Mystery of History is more biblically accurate than The Story of the World.

How do you teach advanced math?

We have used different methods through the years, from Key to to Saxon, and finally Switched-On Schoolhouse and Math-U-See. Our recommendation? Math-U-See. If you are looking for a curriculum that ensures your children will be able to fully understand each mathematical concept before moving on to another one, you have found it. For more than 20 years Math-U-See’s renowned mastery-based, student-paced program has been the answer for countless families. With simple, uncluttered pages, Math-U-See is mastery-oriented, clear, to the point, and effective. In Math-U-See, new ideas are introduced step by step in a logical order, while concepts that have been mastered are reviewed periodically.

What about my reluctant reader?

Many children initially find reading difficult. The first thing you'll want to eliminate is any possible physical problem. Once you've checked your child's eyesight and confirmed that both vision and tracking are adequate, you are ready to work on the skill of reading.

All About Reading (AAR) is the multisensory, mastery-based program that you’ve been hearing so much about. Suitable for all ages, and with activities that benefit all learning styles, AAR teaches phonics, decoding, fluency, and comprehension in a fun and engaging way. Moving at a gentler pace than other more intense reading programs, with AAR only one new concept is taught at a time. Their precept-upon-precept program works with all kids and AAR’s built-in review system helps learning to stick. The progressive introduction of letters introduces vowels with consonants in a way that will allow your child to begin reading almost immediately. We particularly like how AAR integrates phonics instruction and phonics readers into a single comprehensive program, so they correlate directly with each other.

And you will be thrilled to know that no prior training is needed; AAR has lightly-scripted and illustrated “open and go” lessons that make your job easy and stress-free. Lessons are taught in short, manageable chunks, as the author recommends students spend no more than 20 minutes a day learning to read, plus another 20 listening to a read-aloud. Based on the Orton-Gillingham Approach, 97% of English words can be learned according to phonetic rules, leaving only 3% to be learned as sight words. The student activity books add a lot of variety to the lessons and provide additional support. The phonetic readers are the best we have ever seen – beautifully illustrated hardcover books with finely detailed full-color drawings. The complete AAR program consists of five levels from PreK through third grade.

Language Smarts, Phonics Pathways, and First Language Lessons are also great reading & phonics alternatives.

If your child knows how to read but just doesn't like it, then you have a couple of options. The one we most frequently recommend is simply to immerse your child in reading. Keep up with his math and thinking skills, but let all other school areas slide to give you more time for this. Think about it like this: a child who is an eager reader will find life much easier regardless of his or her profession. From architects to zookeepers, all need to read and keep up with what is going on in their profession, as do moms and church leaders. No other single skill (with the exception of thinking skills) will serve your child as much as a love for reading.

If your child hates reading, though, this will not be fun for him without effort on your part. Go to your local library and find books on his passions, ideally slightly below his grade level. This will make it easier for him initially and thus more rewarding. If your child is embarrassed by his lack of reading ability, try having him read to a younger sibling. That will give him a reason to read an easier book than he might otherwise feel comfortable tackling. Subscribe him to magazines on his favorite topics with some parental monitoring, career magazines (such as those covering fire fighting) can be a great fit.