Authors
Beatrix Potter
Books in Five in a Row
Dr. Seuss
EB White
Elie Wiesel
Grammar
Handwriting
Hans Christian Andersen
Laura Ingalls Wilder
Literature
Little House
Louisa May Alcott
Mark Twain
Monthly Homeschool Writing Prompts
Narnia
Online Books
Pinocchio
Poetry
Reading & Phonics
Research
Spelling
The Public Domain Review
Vocabulary
William Shakespeare
Writing
Language Arts Curriculum Reviews
Language Arts Blog Posts
21 Ways Your Homeschool Can Benefit from Audiobooks
Where to Find Free Audiobooks for Homeschooling
Right-Brained Reading
Right-Brained Reading Strategies, Part 2
Right-Brained Reading Strategies
Creative Writing: Writing a Day in the Life Story
Fun Ways To Teach Parts of Speech
Ask Jeanne: Concerns about Spelling
Bringing Literature into Your Child’s Life
LibriVox Free Audiobooks for Homeschooling
Instead of Curriculum: Bring Me Bad Writing
Homeschool High School Composition
Instead of Curriculum: Handwriting Practice
How To Raise Vocabulary Geeks
Reading, Writing, and Rhythm
Instead of Curriculum: Storyteller Jim Weiss
Talking About Books By Talking About Movies
Hardwired for Writing: The Intelligence of the Hand
Creating a Calendar with Children
Play on Words
Online Help For Writing
Self-Editing Checklist
Clapping Games Aid Thinking
Cut Out the Busywork . . . Try Notebooking!
Before notebooking, our school days were chocked full of a variety of learning activities and curriculums, but the learning was so dry and dull. By the end of the day, and I mean the-END-of-the-day, the kids were wiped out and so was I. Do you have days like these? Notebooking will refresh and rejuvenate your homeschooling. It opens the door for meaningful learning while saving you time, money, and those precious hours you currently spend (if you’re like most homeschooling moms) trying to tweak everything that you currently do to make your day better.
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Ask Your Kids To Predict The Future
Writing 100-word Stories
Challenge your 4th-8th graders to write 100-word stories! Not only will this activity appeal to more reluctant writers, it helps drive home the importance of writing descriptive, concise sentences.
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Spring into Writing
Spring has sprung… along with a serious bout of spring fever! How can you help your children stay on task while allowing them to revel in the joy of an April morning? For a welcome break, why not take writing outdoors now and then as the weather beckons?
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Getting More Mileage from Writing Assignments
Writing a composition doesn’t necessarily mean starting from scratch. As your children practice writing different kinds of paragraphs, stories, articles, and short reports, you can help them expand their skills by tweaking a piece of writing they completed in the past. What a great way to get more mileage out of a writing assignment! Let me share six tips for taking a former piece of writing to a whole new level.
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Speed Scrabble: Boost Spelling and Vocabulary
Pre-writing activities disguised as games make it so much more fun to learn and practice skills. Depending on the activity, you can teach or reinforce spelling, grammar, vocabulary, and writing. One of my family’s new favorites, Speed Scrabble (also known as Boardless Scrabble), would be a terrific way to address both spelling and vocabulary.
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No Curriculum Needed Vocabulary Lessons
Words, words, words! A variety of research, such as that by the University of Kansas, has demonstrated that the number of words children know dramatically impacts their success in other academic areas. While reading to children is one of the best ways to help them gain a strong vocabulary, at some point it is helpful to study vocabulary words in an intentional way. For older children this is often incorporated as part of English or Reading curricula, but for young children, such as those who have just learned to read, what options are there for learning vocabulary?
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Editing Tips for Reluctant Moms
Because writing is a process of discovery, it’s doubtful that your student’s first draft will be his best work. Mind you, he will beg to differ. Why, he already likes it the way it is! But whether or not he agrees that his composition should be edited, the truth is that every paper benefits from a second opinion. No matter how many times your child reads and re-reads his own writing, it’s easy for him to miss typos, grammar goofs, or awkward sentences. He knows what he meant to say, so that’s what he sees.
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The Write Way
As homeschool parents often discover, there is no one right way for a child to learn to write. We often try various methods, curricula, tools, and motivations. What might work beautifully for one child may, for another, bring tears—our child’s and our own!
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Research on the Importance of Reading for Children
Author Aldous Huxley wrote, “Everyone who knows how to read has it in their power to magnify themselves, to multiply the ways in which they exist, to make their life full, significant, and interesting.” Although most homeschoolers have an awareness of the importance of reading for children, it is always helpful to review the evidence that backs up our feelings. With the cooler weather coming, fall is the perfect time to take a fresh look at why reading is such a critical factor for children’s success, as well as get reinvigorated toward making reading one of the foundations of the ... Read More »
Excellent Series Books for Children Ages 6-10
Cooler weather outside gives homeschoolers just one more reason to focus on reading! Although reading aloud is an excellent family activity for children of all ages, including those who have long been reading on their own, it is particularly important for children in elementary school. During this critical time period, parents have the opportunity to truly instill a love for reading that has the potential to influence the child’s academic development throughout his or her school years.
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Why Reading Aloud To Your Child Is Important
Okay, so your child loves to watch television, play video games, surf on the Internet, and listen to music. And there’s nothing wrong with those activities, as long as they’re used in moderation. Most parents would also love to see their kids participate in more constructive activities — like reading children’s books — but the trick is to get your little ones to actually sit down and crack open a book a few times per week.
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Homeschool Writing: LEGOS Don’t Build Themselves, You Know!
Just as a LEGOS™ vehicle can’t take shape without the intentional efforts of a builder, your child cannot learn to write without intentional effort from you. At conferences and conventions, we often hear parents ask, “How much time does this writing program require of ME?” We’re a busy bunch, so believe me when I tell you I understand what it’s like to homeschool while trying to juggle laundry, meal preparation, ministry obligations, and a social calendar. But I also learned during my 15 years of homeschooling that certain subjects just don’t teach themselves, and writing is one of them.
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Describing a Person: Adding Details
Lesson 3 presents a unique set of problems for students. They must describe a person in detail and place the subject in a setting; yet they must not end up writing a narrative, or story. Even with WriteShop’s careful guidelines and instructions, many still end up focusing on the activity and neglecting the actual description of their subject. But it’s good to let your kids struggle with the initial writing process. It helps them wrestle with ideas and words, and it reminds them of the importance of brainstorming adequately and effectively.
Once your students ... Read More »
Behind the Mask: What ‘The Phantom of the Opera’ Taught Us
Tips For Struggling Readers – Page 2
Many people who struggle with reading have low self-esteem and feel stupid. They may have been called “stupid” or “lazy”. All research has been conclusive in proving that difficulty with reading has nothing to do with intelligence. If you know someone who feels this way, them know that their reading struggles have nothing to do with their intelligence and they simply need to be taught in the way their brain learns. This can be one of the most empowering pieces of information they ever receive.
. “That’s the real problem with kids who struggle with learning . Some kids feel like ... Read More »
Tips For Struggling Readers
Reading the words from left to right can be a difficult task for struggling readers. Often the words appear to move around or the space between words us unclear. It helps to use a finger or a card underneath the words to help your eyes “track” and focus on each word and letter you are sounding out. This will train your eyes to focus on the word you are reading instead of skipping around looking for other clues to simply guess at the word.
Those who struggle with reading often have many amazing strengths such as building things, putting puzzles together, ... Read More »
Encourage Reading
Have you ever had to read a book on a topic that you didn’t care about? We all have. (Think back to those dry history books filled with a series of dates, or overly technical science tomes.) And sometimes that is part of life – at times we have to read, even if we aren’t inspired by the topic.
But boring books don’t inspire our children to read. A case in point: I was talking with the principal of a local school recently. She lamented that the children just didn’t like to read. Many ... Read More »
Choosing a Homeschool Language Arts Curriculum
What does a homeschool language arts curriculum need to have to make it useful, interesting and comprehensive? Are there language arts lesson plans which I can use over a number of ages? Well, firstly we need to consider what language arts lessons makes a language arts curriculum. It would need to include reading, writing, speaking and listening. Getting to finer details, it would need to teach writing skills from handwriting to written sentences, paragraphs, essays and writing in a wide variety of forms. It should teach interesting use of words, sentence grammar and the use of a variety of sentence ... Read More »
Choosing Color Words When Writing
You have been working on concreteness. Your student is excited to discover a world of new words in his thesaurus and WriteShop word lists. As a parent, you want to allow him to flex his creative muscles, yet you want to guide him so he learns to choose suitable words. This article focuses on picking just the right color words. With so many tempting choices, your eager yet sometimes immature writer may be using color words that—well—do not exactly work.
Molly, in Lesson 2, describes her golden retriever. She says: “Murphy has long buttercup fur with an ... Read More »
Teaching Children to Write by Teaching Self-Editing and Peer Editing Skills
Editing is best taught as an isolated skill and from the time children are old enough to rework a piece of writing, they are old enough to self-edit and peer edit. Recopying a piece of writing that has been corrected to death by an adult is not editing and it serves no good purpose beyond penmanship practice. If you want to teach children to write well, your best bet is to teach them to self-edit and peer edit.
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Starting a Teen Book Study Group
If you’re looking for a way to connect with your teenage daughter this summer, consider starting a girl’s book study group with your daughter and her friends. You may think that teens would not respond well to this idea, but think again. you just might be surprised.
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