It's been a couple of years since I last updated this site. I blame it on both kids and working full time. But my oldest is now out of diapers and my wonderful husband is encouraging me to get back to this hobby since he knows I enjoy this. So, hopefully there will be an increase in material soon!
Raising my own kids has given me a brand new appreciation for the complexities of teaching kids. Before my boys were toddlers, I somehow had the delusion that you could sit a pre-schooler down with a worksheet and they'd happily follow directions and magically learn the lesson. (I laugh at naive past-me). Now I'm more aware of how you can tell a child something and it takes many, many repetitions and a great deal of parental patience before that concept is absorbed. I'm so glad that I've gotten to experience first-hand how teaching a child to read (or math, or potty training, or anything!) has worked 'in real life'.
My own kids, (in a very biased observation), are pretty intelligent. My oldest is nearly four and can read simple sentences pretty fluidly. That's both a blessing and a curse for a person who'd like to develop a homeschooling program. On one hand, I actually taught my son to read with zero help from any program, so I should be able to tell another parent how to do the same! But, on the other hand, I could have skewed expectations if my child learned at an unusually accelerated rate (which, reading at age 3 could possibly indicate).
Without a larger sample size, I have no way to know, but I ended up concluding that the same technique I used to teach my kids will work at any age, whether 2 or 102. Therefor, I plan to proceed and hope for feedback in the future to gauge the age appropriateness of my lessons.
Raising my own kids has given me a brand new appreciation for the complexities of teaching kids. Before my boys were toddlers, I somehow had the delusion that you could sit a pre-schooler down with a worksheet and they'd happily follow directions and magically learn the lesson. (I laugh at naive past-me). Now I'm more aware of how you can tell a child something and it takes many, many repetitions and a great deal of parental patience before that concept is absorbed. I'm so glad that I've gotten to experience first-hand how teaching a child to read (or math, or potty training, or anything!) has worked 'in real life'.
My own kids, (in a very biased observation), are pretty intelligent. My oldest is nearly four and can read simple sentences pretty fluidly. That's both a blessing and a curse for a person who'd like to develop a homeschooling program. On one hand, I actually taught my son to read with zero help from any program, so I should be able to tell another parent how to do the same! But, on the other hand, I could have skewed expectations if my child learned at an unusually accelerated rate (which, reading at age 3 could possibly indicate).
Without a larger sample size, I have no way to know, but I ended up concluding that the same technique I used to teach my kids will work at any age, whether 2 or 102. Therefor, I plan to proceed and hope for feedback in the future to gauge the age appropriateness of my lessons.