How to Teach Using Real Books

by Teri Spray

Want to use a more Classical Approach and teach your children with good literature, but don't know where to start?

For the past fifteen years we have been encouraging families to use "real books" while home \schooling their children. As school years vanish into the past, parents often wish they had read more great books with their children. Here is our chance to provide a rich, well rounded learning experience for our children by simply visiting the library regularly and commiting time to reading each day. Here are some ways to integrate the use of great books into your home education curriculum:

Unit studies: Christian Cottage Schools' Unit Studies and many other unit studies begin each unit with a list of recommended literature to read while you work on the unit study. Most of these excellent books are historic fiction or biographies which relate to the topic, location or era being studied.

Literature Based Unit studies: These are fun studies which you can design for yourself or use curriculum. Here is where an entire unit of study is centered upon one book or a series of books. The history, science, vocabulary and writing assignments are taken from the information in the book. Companies which provide study guides and supplemental activities to go with "real books" are Five-in-a-Row, Progeny Press, Total Language Plus, and Prairie Primer (Little House Series). Study guides are also being created for many more books as of this wriitng. The Patricia St. John books now have study guides to go with them as well as the Trailblazer missionary stories. The good part of these literature studies is the opportunity to take the book into a deeper level. The downside of these studies is that some children find them laborious and tiresome. Some students prefer to read the book in its entirety first then return and reread it with the study guide.

Reading and sharing: Any book can be used as a part of your home schooling day. As your child reads, ask them to come and share the book with you. Charlotte Mason is a turn-of-the -century educator who wrote books on teaching children. She calls this style of learning "narating the book" back to the teacher. This technique measures comprehension and increases articulation skills as well.

Reading and journaling: Older students will often create a reading journal of the book they are reading. Each chapter is summarized in the journal with additonal personal reflections and questions to ponder as the remaining pages are read.

Reading and timelining: Another method of tracking a story's plot is to create a timeline of events as they unfold. Some books will lend themselves easily to this method and others will prove to be quite challenging as the story unfolds in various timeframes and perspectives. Still, it might be a good exercise to attempt to diagram a complex story through a timeline.

Reading Recommendations:
Scheduling:
We recommend at least 30 minutes per day of private reading by children and an additional 30 minutes of read-aloud time by an adult-level reader. (parent or sibling.) In this way, your children will develop a personal love for reading and the family will be able to enjoy and discuss great classics and biographies toghether as you read them aloud.

Seasons of Change:
We highly recommend that 12-14 year olds focus at least 50 % of their reading time on biographies. During these difficult years of personal changes and challenges, they can learn the stories of others who have overcome challenges and made a difference in their world.

We also recommend classics to the 9th and 10th graders to round out their literature foundations. (11th and 12th graders may need to use their reading time for more formal literature anthology courses to prepare them for college studies.)