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Choosing Teaching Materials

Choosing your teaching materials can be an overwhelming decision because there are so many excellent resources and products available and each one claims to be superior to all others. Many veteran homeschoolers would suggest that you stick to a “prepackaged” or traditional curriculum for the first year or so, just until you get the hang of it.

Other parents will encourage new homeschoolers to consider correspondence schools to start with. I don’t necessarily agree with these recommendations, because for many it seems to encourage the idea of viewing home schooling as being “school at home” instead of an exciting and enriching lifestyle of learning.

I know that is takes some experience to determine which materials are best suited to your teaching style and your children's needs, but I am also convinced that the universe can lead concerned parents to the teaching materials and methods that work best for their family with little to no effort on their part. Here are some suggestions concerning choosing curriculum:

Here are some rules for choosing your teaching materials:

Rule #1: First, you need to consider your situation and budget when it comes to choosing your teaching materials. For example, a farm family will have many opportunities for hands on approach to learning in the areas of math, science, economics, etc. while a city family has better access to museums, libraries, cultural events, and more support group activities. You can make the most of the real life learning opportunities that are available to you; perhaps never needing textbooks and teaching materials in certain subject areas are concerned.

As far as your actual budget is concerned, all that is really necessary is a library card. Of course, if you have a computer or DVD player, you can easily take advantage of these resources for information. If you have cable, you can learn about figures in history through the A&E channel’s “Cable in the Classroom” for biographies etc. You can get all that you need for no more money than what you are already paying now.

Rule #2: Choose the teaching materials that complement both you as the teacher and your child as the learner. Textbooks that are developed for classroom use tend to be teacher directed and chalkboard oriented. They seldom take into account different teaching approaches or the different ways children perceive and process information.

Each student has a style in which he/she learns the best. Different children have different learning strengths and weaknesses that the perceptive parent can take into account when choosing teaching materials. Think of what your child is interested in and learn from that.

Rule #3: If you don't like the material that you have chosen, you will end up resisting using it no matter how good it is. All teaching materials have a bias in them, not just in the subject matter, but also in the way the subject matter is presented. Every teaching parent, whether he recognizes it or not, has an educational philosophy of their own or some set of values and beliefs about what and how children should be taught. You should be true to those beliefs.

Sometimes we will have an unexplained inner resistance to certain teaching materials such as formal textbooks. It could be that this inner resistance arises from a conflict between our educational philosophy and that of the teaching material itself, or it can be the result of your own experiences in the classroom. You need to choose your teaching materials from your spirit as well as from your head.

Rule #4: Avoid programs that require a great deal of teacher preparation. Unless you are a researcher-type or high-energy person, you will be extremely irritated by programs that are filled with detailed teacher's manuals that you need to wade through, supplemental books or seminars that are necessary to fully utilize the program, or lots of activities to prepare beforehand.

Rule #5: It is like the old saying goes, “Don't judge a book by its cover”. Expensive does not necessarily mean better. There are $250 reading programs that are loaded with praise and there are those reading programs that cost a mere $25 that are far better. Any dedicated teacher with a good phonics program can teach a child to read and spell well.

You need to remember, this is homeschooling. Some of our favorite programs look like they were put together on someone's kitchen table at night rather than something that was meticulously written by a professor. We've been so conditioned as consumers to want slick packages that we will judge the quality of a product by how it is packaged rather than what is inside of it. Don’t make this mistake.

Rule #6: You need to be aware that there are various schools of thought when it comes to the teaching of any subject. Some examples: In math there are programs that are primarily problem solving with manipulatives and there are programs that are primarily problem solving on paper.

In reading there are programs that focus on learning phonics before learning to read, programs that focus on learning the rules of grammar and punctuation while you are learning to read, and there are programs that focus on just learning to read and letting the rules come later.

Each school of thought has produced excellent mathematicians, readers, or spellers. What this means is that you can teach to your best ability and not feel pressured to follow someone else’s train of thought on the matter.

Rule #7: you need to realize that people’s needs change. What worked one year may not necessarily work the next. Your family's needs and interests will always change and you need to learn to go with the flow. Buy materials that meet your present needs and mold the curriculum to the child’s abilities, not the child to the curriculum.

Also, you need to be aware that not all books in a series are equally as good. For example, the fourth grade level of a particular program may be excellent, but this does not mean the other levels will work just as good. Be prepared to change your series of texts accordingly.

Rule #8: The universe gave you your children because there is something in YOU that it wants imparted to them. Teaching materials are only meant to be used as tools to help you impart yourself to your children. You can trust the universe to lead you to those materials that will help you best teach each child if you let it. Your instincts count when it comes to homeschooling.

Rule #9: You will want to remember that teaching materials are often the least important elements of your home school situation. Books are easy to get rid of if they don't work for you, but attitudes and destructive family dynamics are not. The five major reasons families fail at home education are:

• they lack the conviction to continue on through the difficult times;

• It is a single parent household or both parents are not in agreement

• the children are undisciplined and resist parental instruction;

• the parents are undisciplined and cannot handle the added responsibilities

• The family has unrealistic expectations or goals that are too high.

As you can see, choosing your learning materials do require thought on your part, but it doesn’t have to be harder than it needs to. If you come to realize that your own instincts and abilities are your best assets, you will then know that you need no more than where they lead you.

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