I love books. I love learning. I like an organized and sequential approach to education.
Basal readers often accompany a reading program that allows the parent or teacher to use the reader appropriate to the skills being taught. Not all books promote the best learning experiences for my children I have to put aside what works well for me in favor of what works well for them . They don’t always enjoy dry information and prefer to be more hands on with their learning.
Yes, I love books and yes, I love learning so I have a love hate relationship with basal readers.
I began homeschooling with a conventional curriculum that gave me guidance and structure. Since those early years,I have expanded my understanding of how my own children learn and how to specialize their education to suit them. We gradually transitioned to classical methods, real books and manipulatives.
So here I am, setting out in our current methods from the very beginning for the first time.
I’ll NEVER be able to teach our youngest to read without ABEKA’s phonics to tell me how!
Of course this is not really true but I began this school year quite overwhelmed with the task of doing just this. I had so many weak moments where I wanted to run to the ABEKA site and order the kit that would lay it all out for me.
Instead of caving in to the fear of striking out less conventionally and in ways I had never done before, I collected a stack of real story books and some that are published with specific reading levels in mind. Rather than tuck those away for a time when my daughter would be able to read each word on her own, I began reading them to her.
She enthusiastically selects a book to read and will stop me to point to letters she recognizes and the sounds they make. My older children would never have asked me to read a basal reader to them nor did they ever choose to read one on their own after they were independently reading. The books were read only during a lesson and once covered, were then buried in a school drawer with other materials. My youngest often thinks of the school books as things to enjoy and read outside of class time.
Do basal readers have any place in our school room?
I purchased the first set of Bob Books for the beginning reader. I do think it’s important for a child to be able to read some words and even complete a small book to encourage them. My daughter enjoys the artwork in these books and they work fairly well with the Ordinary Parent’s Guide to Teaching Reading that we use.
I also found another set that would work well for us. I am trying to beat back those old desires for matched and sequenced sets. I think we have found a good balance between basal or level readers and real books. Now I need to remind myself of that.
Beginner's Vocabulary: Definitions and Descriptions for the Beginning Homeschooler
Basal reader
ABEKA
Ordinary Parent’s Guide to Teaching Reading
