Reading

If you start homeschooling at the beginning of your child's academic career then you will be the one teaching your child to read.  This is a bit scary for many parents, including me.  When we started homeschooling, our kids were in the first, third and sixth grades and the first grader had not yet learned to read.   A lot of people we knew had success with this book, Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons.  I personally tried various things, phonics programs, etc, but had the final breakthrough with him with the Leapfrog videos and illustrated sight words cards pictured above).  Now we are faced with the issue that at 13 he can read very well, but can't spell very well at all, so we will probably be using resources from this site Dianne Craft.   For my daughter we have used Sequential Spelling for several years and now her spelling is really good.  My oldest came out of public school reading and spelling very well so we didn't really have to address much of this with him.   One of the more difficult things, I think, is to bring up a child who loves reading because reading is so good for the brain.  We've done read alouds for years and are still doing them and I think that helps too, as well as frequent trips the the library.  A lot of times we go to town and my youngest will walk through stores with me and will have a book in front of his face, reading the whole time.  People will ask me how I got him reading voluntarily and I don't know what to say.  Sometimes I just say "I homeschool him."  other times I just shrug.  My whole philosophy of education is just too long to discuss at the Walmart, you know?