I’d been homeschooling for what felt like two seconds when we had our first, “What do we do now?” moment. My boys were four and six, and I had plenty of tasks I wanted them to do, but they didn’t have the desire to do any of them. So, I asked them to bring their favorite picture books over to our big, comfy couch, and I read them aloud while they snuggled for a few minutes and then played with their Legos. I figured reading while they played was better than nothing.
It would be years before I knew how close I was to finding the secret to teaching at home like an expert.
Now my boys are 12 and 14, and we’ve been homeschooling for 11 years. A few summers ago, we had what felt like our biggest, “What do we do now?” moment. The textbooks weren’t keeping their attention, there were tears when we tried to do writing and math, and I wasn’t sure any of it would stick. Also, I was having doubts about homeschooling high school.
So, I reached out to a few homeschool veterans online and found overwhelming advice to read two books – Teaching from Rest and The Read-Aloud Family, and I learned something that revolutionized my homeschool.
It changed the way we do science.
It changed the way we do literature.
It changed the way we do social studies, language arts, and foreign languages, too.
The good news is – it’s one of the easiest things you can do, and it can help all of us trying to help our kids learn at home right now (whether it’s because of the coronavirus or not). Here’s what I learned:
Reading aloud is the absolute best thing you can do when learning at home or teaching your kids at home for any length of time – it’s the secret to teaching at home like an expert. And it’s backed up by loads of research, too.
Here’s how it works:
- Select a book or audiobook.
- Start reading aloud or press play and listen.
- Talk about the book casually with genuine interest.
Worried it won’t work?
Here are a few helpful hints:
- Let them choose the books. Yep, let the kids choose.
- Give your kiddos something to do with their hands while they listen. Think clay or play-doh for younger ones, drawing, painting, or art projects for older ones.
- Sprinkle in some non-fiction titles for subjects like math, science, and social studies.
- Resist the temptation to quiz your kids on comprehension questions, assign complicated projects related to the book, or grill them about themes. Instead, create a book club culture at home. This is one of my favorite recommendations from Sarah Mackenzie; it seriously works wonders!
- Sign up for online communities that provide a steady stream of good book recommendations.
- Don’t try to be like any other family – choose the books your family loves, and let the rest go.
Want to see what it looks like in my family? Here’s the story about read-alouds I sent to my email group last year, and here’s our “Day in the Life” story from earlier this year.
If you have teens and tweens at home, here’s a book list you might love. It’s loaded with the books my boys love as well as enough audiobook series to keep your family listening to good books together for months and months.
No matter what kind of homeschool or learning at home you’re into right now, I hope this little post helps you find your groove.
Still have questions?
Shoot me a message with this link – I love talking to other moms about books every day of the week!
*This post contains affiliate links for the books mentioned. If you purchase those books through the links in this post, a few pennies of the regular price get dropped into my book fund. (It doesn’t cost you any extra.)
Celeste Orr is an adventure-loving mama (full-time traveler before COVID-19) homeschooling her tween and teen on the coast of Maine, writing books and hosting a fun email group to help families build connection and go after big family dreams at togethernessredefined.com. You can find her on Instagram @celeste__orr.