You Can Also Teach Your Own Child!
“But I don’t know how to teach!” is one of the most common concerns among parents who are considering home schooling. Yet all parents have been teaching their children everyday Just think of all the things children learn from their parents: how to walk, talk, feed themselves, dress themselves, tie shoes, pick up toys, obey the rules, color with crayons, run, jump – the list goes on and on. Teaching “school” is no different; only the content changes You do know how to teach your child, and teach him better than anyone else because he is your child.
There is in fact a basic process underlying teaching which anyone can use to teach anybody anything, from baking a cake to solving an algebra problem. This process can be broken into seven basic steps.
1. Be sure both student and teacher agree on exactly what the student wants to learn, and that the teacher is qualified to teach it.
When you decide to home school, most of this is done for you. The state you live in will have specific subjects it expects students to learn, to which you can add your special family concerns such as Bible study or environmentalism. If you’re already homeschooling, you’ve done most of this already. You are qualified to teach both because you are your child’s parents and because you are selecting textbooks and curricula that will give you what you need to guide your child’s instruction. Nor do you need to know everything yourself: that’s what the texts are for, after all! Focus on your strengths and find solid instructional materials to fill in any gaps. And since this is home school, you can individualize instruction for your child by focusing on his interests and abilities
2. Clearly define the goal of the lesson in terms of what the student will learn. Rather than say to the student, ‘This is what I will teach you,” focus your goals and lessons around what the student will do to learn: “Today you will mix cookie dough and bake a dozen cookies” or ‘Today you will show that you understand how to divide simple fractions.” This is how the schools set educational goals and it works at home as well. The emphasis is on what the student will be able to accomplish by the end of the lesson or series of lessons Many skills and subjects will have multiple steps or will build over time, so expect to break them down into smaller parts for each day’s lesson. Planning ahead is essential for this reason. It’s also important to be flexible; if you’ve over-planned a day’s activity, be ready to finish the next day rather than push both of you until you’re irritated and frustrated. Learning to bake cookies is a whole afternoon’s effort, especially with younger children. Memorizing math facts or learning to read fluently are tasks that can take months of gradual, incremental lessons. Keep the larger picture in mind when planning school for the day or week ahead.
3. Briefly go over all the separate parts or steps of the process or topic being learned. Provide an outline of the process for use as a guide during the lesson and as a reminder for future use. You can easily see how this applies to changing your oil or sewing a button: explain the complete process step by step before beginning. For academic lessons, it maybe enough to introduce the subject generally, with a reference to lessons in the days ahead, and then move on to the next step. For example, when beginning a study on birds, you can begin by introducing the topic, asking the child what he already knows, then discussing briefly the kinds of things you will be learning over the next few days or weeks, depending on the length of your study. Math, reading, handwriting, and typing are skills that usually don’t need very much introduction; a brief summary of what the day’s lesson will cover should be sufficient. An outline is usually only necessary when you’re teaching a task with multiple steps, such as baking a cake, cleaning the bathroom, or building a birdhouse. Academic subjects can use aids such as wall charts, desk charts (like the ones for handwriting), and of course lesson and reference books.
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