Great New Resource

I have recently found a Great New Resource of articles of interest to homeschoolers. Although it is designed for Latter Day Saints, there are topics of interest to everyone.

Check it out at www.latter-dayhomeschooling.com

More about Dick and Jane

Using the Dick and Jane books (along with some phonics) is working out well for both Delta and Echo. I found a great site that helps you determine what order to do the books in - the names of the books vary a little from decade to decade. I personally prefer the ones from the 40's and 50's - but any would likely work well.

For the starting reader, there are 5 to 6 books of interest.

The Early Primers go in order of

1. We look and See
2. We Work and Play
3. We Come and Go

Echo is currently working on the "We Come and Go" book.

There is a Junior Primer (from a later decade) called "Guess Who". One website mentioned that it is for slower readers - so I suspect that if the child is still having problems after the Early Primers, they would move to "Guess Who" instead of starting the Grade 1 Reader. However, it looks like it would also be a good Primer for a child that picks up reading quickly, but hasn't done the Early Primers.

There is a "Storybook Treasury of Dick and Jane and Friends" which has the Early Primers in it (but not in order!) - and uses "The New We Work and Play" (from the 60's.) It is the Yellow book. There is a Blue Storybook Treasury (not sure of the name) that has a couple of the Newer primers, and "Guess Who". Either of these books might be available in your library.

The Grade 1 Readers are called

1. Fun with Dick and Jane
2. Our New Friends

There are Readers for higher grades (only available used) - and I did find the books for Grade 2 and 3 at the same used store - but I feel by that point, using true literature is a better choice, even if you are buddy reading with your child.

It looks like there is a reprint of "Fun with Dick and Jane" - but I haven't had a chance to look at it yet, so I'm not sure if it is like the original or not. (Oh, and be aware.... there is a "More Fun with Dick and Jane" book that is an adult book satire of the Dick and Jane series. Don't mistake it for a Dick and Jane book!) [SEE UPDATE BELOW]

It doesn't look like "Our New Friends" has been reprinted. I was fortunate to find a used copy from the 40's in pretty good condition. I am having Delta read it for practice. I think his reading ability is a little above it, as he rarely makes mistakes, but he does occasionally need to work out a word, so I think it will be great practice. And he is enjoying being able to read a book with a story without it being difficult.

For a review of my understanding of Charlotte Mason's methods of teaching reading... She does advocate a little bit of work with phonics, mainly looking at word families.... but she mostly recommended a method of learning whole words. She recommended taking a nursery rhyme or poem, slowly teaching the words (by making copies of each word individually and having a child pick them out from other words) and working on all the words of a stanza of the poem out of order until they knew them - then reading the poem. As the very first Dick and Jane primer has a total of 17 words - it seems to me to be a good choice, although it was recommended by CM to include interesting words that are large and different. The repetition of the words in Dick and Jane serve to really get the child to know those words - and the child has a joy of reading a whole book right off!

Basically, I've found that a mixture of phonics and whole words seems to work well. The child has a way to figure out words that they don't know, and know how the system works through phonics - but phonics alone seems for many children to make reading hard work trying to figure out each word. Using whole words repeatedly lets them experience the joy of reading more easily and quickly. Together seems to work well. And although Dick and Jane is now looked down on for teaching reading - I think they can work well with that combined approach.

UPDATE

With some research, I have been able to find the Stories in the 40's Fun with Dick and Jane.

(Site with information)

They are....

• Family Fun (section)
• See it Go
• Guess
• Something for Sally
• Do What I Do
• Father Helps the Family
• Sally Makes Something
• Sally Wants to Play
• Jane Helps
• A Funny Ride
• Fun at the Farm (section)
• At the Farm
• The Pony
• Dick and the Hen
• A Family in the Barn
• A Big Big Dog
• Puff Wants to Play
• Funny Cookies
• Two Pets
• Pets and Toys (section)
• Fun for Little Quack
• Little Rabbit
• The Big Blue Ball
• In and Out
• The New Toy
• The Toy Farm
• Jane Wants a Doll
• Who can Talk?
• Fun with Our Friends (section)
• Sally Finds Friends
• Who Can Find It?
• The Funny House
• A Ride with Mother
• What Sally Saw
• Fun at School
• Pets at School

The Recent Reprint has 6 stories

• Look Up
• Who Is It?
• Something Pretty
• Where is Sally?
• Jane Helps Mother
• A Funny Ride

I assume that "A Funny Ride" is the same, and that "Jane Helps Mother" is "Jane Helps". Perhaps the others are the same with a different name.

In any case - there is obviously a LOT of stories missing - so I will have to hope I luck out and find the old one at a descent price.

Excuse my Absence

There has been a lot going on here, including some illness etc, that has made keeping the blog up-to-date not a high priority.

Oh - and I may as well announce now - Little "Golf" is expected. He or She will be born around the end of June!

Look, look. See, see. See Echo Read!

Ok, here it is. I can't remember the process that was taken when I learned to read because I read when I was barely 3.

I do know the story though.

Because my oldest brother knew how to read before going to school - and had a teacher who couldn't handle that - he absolutely ended up hating school in grade 1. So my parents worked hard to not let their other children learn to read before school.

However, one day when I was young, my older sister got out a "Dick and Jane" reader and played school with me. I'm not sure how long she played with me that day, but before she was done, I was reading. My parents shrugged their shoulders, and got out the rest of the "Dick and Jane" readers.

Jump forward a couple of decades, and I have been working on teaching Delta and Echo to read. But by now, the "Dick and Jane" readers are looked down on, as being a part of the illiteracy problem. So, I started the phonics program. It worked ok for a while, but none of the kids enjoyed it after getting to a certain point. And reading just was such hard work.

So, I talked to my Dad (who was a teacher), and he said that a mixture of reading instruction types works best overall. This was also about the time I discovered Charlotte Mason. I then made up some Doman type flashcards from "Teach your baby to read" and made a few homemade books. That worked well with them as a bridge. I started Delta on the Treadwell/Free Primer, and he did well. Reading is still work, but he is reading fairly well. I hope fluency will come soon.

But Echo.... she was to the point that she needed something other than just the phonics - but the Treadwell/Free Primer was too difficult. Then I had the flash go off in my head. If I learned how to read so easily with "Dick and Jane", then maybe my kids could too. I did a bit of looking, and found that my library had a couple of treasury books, and I requested them.

Well, what a joy! I sat with Echo, and she has read a couple of the "readers" in the one treasury with hardly any help at all. The phonics she has done allows her to figure out the word - and the repetitaveness gets the word in her head so that she doesn't have to figure it out each time - so it moves quicker. She is thrilled because she is reading a story, and a book, not just sentances. Delta has read both treasurys by now, and is enjoying reading without the effort. They have both spent a lot of time with them on their own.

So - I will be adjusting the learning reading suggestions on the blog. It is just exciting seeing them love the books. (And scarily enough, I remember the stories and pictures.)

I will admit that Mike finds the repetative stories annoying, and rolled his eyes when he saw the books from the library.... but I find them nostalgicly interesting.

When things don't go as planned.

A lot has been happening here at Maple Hill Academy. Of course, they were all unexpected, and included things such as sickness. Besides not having time to Blog (which I'm sure you all noticed) - it has put us behind our homeschool plan.

It would be easy to panic at this point - especially as I expect to be very busy around the end of June, meaning that further delay may stop us from completing the entire year.

So - what do you do when things don't go as planned?

As "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" would say "DON'T PANIC!"


Especially in Year 1, there are really only a few things that I feel need to be completed to keep us over-all on track. Those are the good old-fashioned 3R's.... Reading, 'Riting, and 'Rithmetic. Is your student learning their math? Is he learning to read? Is he learning to write? Even if you don't finish the whole program, if those are well on track by the end of the year, you have succeeded. And the chances are, your student will have learned a LOT more then that. "Gaps" won't be a huge deal -- remember that even at public school, if a student is sick - he just misses anything learned that day. At least in subjects like math that are sequential, we can make sure our student doesn't miss some important concept!

Even in the later years, if you end up having to skip a reading book, or miss a chapter or two of the history book, I think your student will still be far ahead.

So, what is my revised plan? We will just keep working with the schedule - who cares that we are not on the week that I wanted to be? At the end of the year, I can see where we are at. For stuff like Math, I have the choice of starting Year 2 wherever we have stopped in Year 1 - or we could spend a little bit of summer time finishing it up. For other subjects, that are not so sequential, I can decide to either skip some items - or for some of the reading books we could always read them together during the summer. Again, our choice.

I think the main thing is not to panic - not to get frustrated - not to let the student know that he is behind - and not to throw out the program!

Year 0 Music

On a message board I frequent, there was a question on what a mom can do about music instruction with their Year 0 (and Year K) children when they can't afford lessons and don't feel confident enough to teach them themselves. This mom did intend their children to do Piano when they were older. Here is my response.


What you can do at home on your own may depend a lot on what music skills you (or other family members) already have. Listening to good classical music is a HUGE part of music education, even if you can't do anything else. That can make a huge difference when the child later learns an instrument. Find quality recordings by good artists. (I'd buy the Suzuki CD's for the Piano, or whichever instrument you are thinking of for the future - even if you don't plan to do Suzuki.)

And as hard as it can be for an adult - for year 0 kids, I would say that repetition can be more important than a huge selection. (My 18 month old "sings" the notes to "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star" and "Allegro" because she hears them so often. (My older kids do Suzuki violin, and the oldest is doing home-taught piano based on Suzuki Piano. So we listen to the CDs for Violin 1 and 2, and the CDs for Piano 1 and 2 every day) (As violin has 6 different rhythm variations of Twinkle on the CD, and Piano has 8 Twinkle variations on the CD - my 18 month old hears a variation of Twinkle 14 times a day at least from the CD's - and then hears it at least a couple of times from daily practice of the older kids.))

I know that not everyone can afford lessons..... but look into bursaries. A lot of programs out there do have bursaries or scholarships for people that need it. Sometimes deals can be worked on a barter system, if you have a skill that the instructor could use.

For older kids, some Orchestra's have programs to help teach kids musical instruments that aren't as "popular" - ones where there tends to be a shortage of players for the orchestra... (Things like Bassoon, or Oboe, or Tuba - I'm not sure which ones but there are ones out there...)

Back to what you can do now - besides the listening a lot - I would say that rhythm is a major thing. (If you do get the Suzuki CD's, you will here the Twinkle Variations that are different IMPORTANT rhythms in classical (and other styles) of playing. They were selected for a reason. I don't know the reasons for all of them, but as we go further in music, I see the rhythms over and over. Clap these, or other rhythms. Get some cheap rhythm instruments. We have used plastic coffee cans from Mike's for drums... we have real maracas, as well as some toy ones. Cheap tamborines from the $ store. Shakers. Some of this can be homemade - but I think that if you can get quality real ones, the sound is noticable. Practice "marching" to the beat. rhythm is SO important in music.

If you have a piano at home - start singing some of the notes. (make sure the piano is tuned!) Play a C key, and sing "Seaaaaa (C)" do the A key and sing "Aaaaaaa" (try to match the key). If you start doing this young enough, your child is very likely to develop "Perfect Pitch" which is loved by choir directors and music teachers of any instrument. If they don't develop "Perfect Pitch", they will probably still have a very strong "Relative Pitch", which is also very helpful. Note that you are not trying to teach the child where those keys are on the piano - you are teaching them that that tone or sound has a name, and this is the name.

Additions to Year 1

see here

In looking for more Canadian Content, I have found a couple of books that I am adding to Year 1.

They are both a picture book, but with a fair bit of story. These are free reads that shouldn't be missed!

• "A Fiddle for Angus" - Budge Wilson. Based in the Maritimes, is about a boy that chooses to learn the fiddle so that he can play music with his family. (Note that one of the illustrations includes Natalie MacMaster - a famous Canadian fiddler)
• "Selina and the Bear Paw Quilt" - Barbara Smucker Although mostly based in the States, a family moves to Upper Canada to avoid the Civil War. Generations of the family are tied together via a quilt.

Also for Year K, I have added "The Hockey Sweater" by Roch Carrier. You can hear the author read the story at the CBC archives!