Homeschooling your child is a very big step in taking control of your child’s education. Many parents have so many questions, such as where to get text books, what should be taught at each grade level, or what books should my child read? This article will give you hints and tips on choosing grade and level appropriate books for your homeschooling curriculum. There are many websites available offering homeschooling reading resources that parents can access.
One of these is bookadventure.org, which is a free reading resources site put on by the Sylvan Learning Center. Homeschooling parents can find many reading resources here, including book lists organized by grade, contests, book quizzes, and so much more. The site is divided into three main sections: Kids Zone, Parent’s Area, and Teacher’s Lounge.
Kids Zone
The Kids Zone has a book finder, a quiz section, and a prize section. It also includes many reading resources like games, awards and tools, such as dictionaries and almanacs. Make sure you have your homeschooling child visit the Cool Stuff for Kids in this section!
The Teachers Lounge
Homeschooling parents can access the Teacher’s Lounge for great reading resources such as book awards and reviews, edu-tainment, library learning, events, teachers toolbox, ways to encourage parent participation, links to other educational resources, reading challenges and even a spot to create a free website for your class.
The book awards and reviews link provides a page full of links to several different book lists, including the International Reading Association Awards, bestsellers, and more!
In the edu-tainment section, links are offered for reading resources, such as games, reading activities, and motivation to encourage reading and make it fun. This is an important section; homeschooling is hard enough, but parents must be able to make it fun so that their children enjoy reading.
The library learning section has articles and tips on how to use the library to encourage reading and learning, as well as many other sites that offer literature help. Homeschooling families can find online stories and books, and lists of public, state and Smithsonian libraries.
Homeschooling families often miss out on many opportunities offered to public school students. This is only because homeschooling parents don’t always know where to find information on these opportunities. The events link in the Teacher’s Lounge lists many events happening in the academic world, including contests, challenges, and academic happenings.
In the Teacher’s Toolbox, you will find resources for creating homeschooling lesson plans, setting a curriculum, and more. At the time that I wrote this article, the toolbox contains multiple links on Earth Day resources, so that homeschooling parents can incorporate Earth Day easily into their curriculum. Lesson plans can be difficult for homeschooling teachers to create; the toolbox has multiple links to lesson plans on many different subjects.
For those of you homeschooling now, it may not sound like the Parent Participation resource in the Teachers Lounge is relevant to you. However, it does offer a few links that will also be helpful to homeschooling families. Be sure to check this section out.
The Educational Links section offers a large list of links to national education organizations, educational websites, and entertaining websites that offer support to teaching reading.
For those homeschooling families with reading or developmental disabilities, the Reading Challenges section offers help. There are links and resources for families dealing with Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD) as well as Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), dyslexia, and even the exceptionally gifted reader.
In addition to all of the reading resources listed above, the Teachers Lounge also offers a Personal Incentive Plan, a free reading Teacher’s Guide, and even ideas on starting a book group. The Personal Incentive Plan allows homeschooling teachers to create certificates and prizes for meeting reading goals. The free teacher’s guide includes a sample reading book list, a reading poster and more!
Parents Place.
The parents place is a great resource, especially for homeschooling parents. It offers tools such as: a book collection, family edu-tainment, library learning, events and outreach, homeschooling, parent enrichment, educational links, homeworker helper and reading challenges.
The book collection section is just that: a list of award winning books and book reviews, which are great reading resources. The family edu-tainment section offers links to fun and educational activities for the entire homeschooling family. Library learning offers both library reading resources and online reading resources. The events and outreach section offers links to reading events, challenges and contests.
The parent enrichment page offers so much information, I can’t even list it all. There are sites for parenting, ways to make parenting fun, reading levels by age and grade, and so much more. Education links, like the page in the teachers lounge, offers links to national education sites, educational organizations and the like, all related to reading.
The homework helper offers links to sites that encourage good reading habits, good homework habits and offers tips and tools to instill those good habits. The Reading Challenges in the Parents Place offers links with information on how to identify reading and learning disabilities.
I have not, by any means, listed all of the resources available on www.bookadventure.org. I encourage all homeschooling parents to explore this site for their reading curriculum needs.
