If you ask parents their greatest concern about homeschooling their child or children, you probably will not hear them say socialization, instead their answer most likely will be teaching their children to read. Reading is a fundamental skill that every parent wants their children to succeed in. The expectation of having your children reading at a young age or at a specific level based on their grade level can put unwarranted pressure on parents and children.
Sometimes you need extra help and resources when it comes to reading. Quality resources to support parents and children on the homeschool journey are exactly what SchoolhouseTeachers.com provides. The Focus on Reading Center provides families with a variety of courses designed to help early readers, emerging readers, and struggling readers. Each course contains an already created lesson plan. There is even a certificate of completion at the end of each course! This is great to add to a homeschool portfolio if you’re required to show work samples.
Start Today with the Focus on Reading Center
For many families, the pressure of teaching their children to read can bring an overwhelming feeling of fear and doubt. Using the Literacy Center section is designed to help parents determine where to begin reading instruction with their children. The following levels are part of the Reading Center:
- Pre-Readers
- Emerging Readers
- Early Readers
- Growing Readers
- Fluent Readers
- Comprehension Skills
Within each category you can determine the skill your child needs to work on. Browse the links, techniques, and strategies to find the appropriate instruction. If you are a family that has just recently pulled your child from a public school setting and want to know where your child’s reading skills are, this resource is very helpful.
Teach A Love for Reading
Fostering a love of reading with children is important. This will make learning to read more enjoyable for the child and parent! When first teaching my daughter to read I was inundated by people asking me how well she could read and what her reading level was when she was 6! This began to put a lot of pressure on me and my daughter. Instead of making reading enjoyable, it was met with a lot of tears (for both of us). SchoolhouseTeachers.com provides many beginning reading courses that will not only engage children but make learning letters, letter sounds, and reading fun! Courses such as ABC What Will I Be? that incorporates crafts, math, sensory activities and even science helps preschoolers learn their ABC’s while exploring different professions. There are several early reader courses that will engage children in different activities to help them learn the foundations of reading.
Using the Reading Center to Building Skills and Comprehension
As your child begins to develop and gain reading skills, the Reading Center provides links to other courses that will help with fluency, grammar, and reading comprehension. Courses such as Language Arts for Elementary: Key Skills will give children the skills needed for grammar and writing. This course teaches sentences, paragraphs, poetry, and more through examples and an easy-to-follow format. Other courses focus on stories and reading comprehension to help children discover characters, plot, setting, and point of view, leading to a deeper comprehension of the story.
Help For the Struggling Reader
If you have a child who is struggling with reading, the Focus on Reading Center also has resources and courses to help. There are resources available in different areas such as phonics, reading fluency, spelling, as well as grade-related help. So, if your child is a struggling middle school reader you can find lesson plans that will work best with this age group. For example, the Reading Remedies course takes into account the different learning styles of children. This will help them improve their literacy whether with audio, text, book lists, or printables.
Check It Out!
Head on over to the Focus on Reading Center on SchoolhouseTeachers.com today. Check out all the wonderful resources to help with teaching reading to children of all ages and abilities!
HomeschoolingFinds.com Author
Yvonne is a wife and homeschooling mom of two, living in western Maine. She blogs about homeschool and homesteading on The Life We Build.