Learning at Home: A Mother's Guide to Homeschooling by Marty Layne --Take V

While I don't have much to say about chapter 3 (about reading), I definitely appreciate Layne's laid-back approach to the subject.
A poem from chapter 4 (about writing) describes Layne's approach to homeschooling and, I think, to life in general.

T.T.T.

Put up in a place 

where it's easy to see

the cryptic admonishment 

T.T.T.

When you feel how depressingly

slow you climb,

it's well to remember that

Things Take Time.

~by Piet Hein from his book Grooks

Layne goes on to say that "competency in the techniques of writing come with practice and interest" (p. 94).  My  six-year-old daughter has been reading for quite a while now and can read most anything but has not spent a lot of time writing.  She recognizes all the letters and pretty much gets their sounds, but is not, at this point, drawn to writing in the same was as she is drawn to reading.  It's been interesting to observe the way that these skills manifest themselves in other children -- children, for example, who write words, sentences, and paragraphs easily and often but who don't do a lot of reading on their own or with others.  Perhaps this is just more proof that human beings learn at different rates and we all just need to chill the freak out.  ;)   Surround children with print, immerse them in it and then sit back and give them the space to explore.

Layne says, 

I would often answer the question "How do you spell such and such a word?" with a question of my own "How do you think it is spelled?" until I was told that this was not an acceptable answer.  Josh told me that when he asked it didn't mean that he hadn't thought of how the word was spelled, he just wanted an answer.   Now I answer the question about how to spell a word by giving the spelling and bite my tongue to stop my first response of wanting to ask how the person thinks it is spelled.  I remind myself that my children want an impersonal and immediate response like my word processor's spell check function.

 This is a realization that I've come to recently as well. As a college student in the elementary education program, I learned about the value of inventive spelling.  I still believe that inventive spelling can give children the freedom to concentrate on what they are trying to express rather than on the mechanics of spelling.  But I think the choice to use inventive spelling belongs to the child -- indeed, an insistence, on the part of the adult, that the child use inventive spelling takes away that very freedom that inventive spelling would otherwise give.  There are times when Fiona writes on her own without asking for certain words to be spelled and there are other times when she simply wants each word she is writing to be "right" -- both are completely acceptable ways of writing.

Layne finishes chapter 4 by discussing Mad Libs, cursive vs. print, and two forms of poetry that are good for beginning poets to use.

Chapter 5 (math) is full of resources and ideas, including a list of games that build and strengthen the framework needed for mathematics ("...so much more than computation.  It is a way of perceiving and defining the world." p 114).  It has prompted me to want to start playing cribbage with Fiona.

Some bullet points from chapter 6 (the arts):

• "what is important is exposing your child to various artistic modes of expression not whether or not he or she becomes a star" p. 120
• visit a music store just for fun, to look around
• go to concerts!
• artists to check out: Tom Chapin, Tom Paxton, Malvina Reynolds, The Travellers
• dance with your kids
• draw with your children -- try still lifes

Chapter 7 -- Life as Curriculum -- Science and Social Studies

• teach your child how to find non-fiction books in the library -- especially for those subjects that especially interest them -- For as much as we go to the library, this is not something we've done with Fiona and I want to remember to do so this summer. 

All quotes from Learning at Home used with author's permission:   www.martylayne.com