Writing consists of two skills: first, the child practices the mechanics of developing correct letters and putting them together in properly spelled words, and secondly, the maturing child practices incorporating meaning into the composition. In this final post of the series, “Learning the Language,” step one of the classical homeschool trivium, I’ll give you concrete steps that you can implement which will help your child master the mechanics of writing. Writing with meaning will be covered later when I discuss step three of the classical trivium, “Communicating Effectively.”

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Setting the Stage

You’ve been encouraging your child since birth to expand her spoken language abilities by surrounding her with music, conversations, nursery rhymes, and reading. You’ve gently corrected her when she made mistakes and always respond to her attempts to communicate with praise and excitement. You, your spouse, and her siblings are good role models in that you all love to read. She sees you reading all the time for pleasure and for learning. You read to her every day, and you answer every question with enthusiasm and maybe even more information than she wanted. You’ve looked at the pictures in the books and predicted the story plot line. You’ve shown her that the text moves from left to right and down by using your finger to point out occasional words. You’ve already taught her the Alphabet song. You’ve diligently laid all the necessary groundwork of a rich, literate home where printed text is meaningful and pleasurable to read. Somewhere around the age of 5 or 6 years old, she’ll be ready to acquire another critical skill of language development: writing!

Learning about Letters

Now that she can sing her ABCs reasonably well (even if she slurs the phrase “lmnop”), it’s time to start writing the letters of the alphabet. She may already know the names of some letters from your daily reading-aloud time. You don’t need to purchase an expensive curriculum to teach your kids their ABCs. Just purchase a unlined art sketchbook with smooth paper, or go to Kinkos and have them bind 100 pages in a spiral. You’ll put one letter on each of 26 pages then later you’ll add the letter blends like the sound “sh” and the sound “ck.”

Start with her name. Teach her how to make the letters of her name by saying each letter as you write. Be very specific when you show her how to make each letter. For example, to make the uppercase letter “T” say something like “draw a straight line across” then “now find the middle of the line and draw a straight line down.” Or when showing her how to draw the letter “B” say “start at the top and draw a straight line down” then “go back to the top and draw a fat tummy that points to the right and stops halfway” then draw a 2^nd fat tummy that starts at the center also points right.” Make sure you show her how to write both the uppercase and lowercase letter on the page. Be sure to use the words uppercase and lowercase instead of big and little when describing the letters.

Help her find pictures from magazines that start with each letter, or if you or she are good artists, draw a picture and color it like an apple for the letter “A.” So now you have one page with the uppercase and lowercase letter and a picture or drawing of an object that starts with that letter. When you are finding pictures for the consonants, select images that sound like the single consonant and not a blend. For example, pick a “sock” for the letter “S” and not a “sheltie.” You’ll be adding photos of blends later.

In addition to working in your ABC book, use magnetic letters on the refrigerator, dry erase boards, magna doodles, paint, sand, or play letter games. You can make an easy BINGO board game on cardstock with the letters and letter blends, but don’t just say the letter “D;” say “D as in dog.” I really appreciated the DIY games in Peggy McKay’s book, Games for Reading. Even as the kids got older, we played a reading game every Friday. Make learning the alphabet fun!

Putting it all together in 30 minutes a day

Now that she is becoming familiar with her ABCs, she is ready to begin reading out loud, narrating the story, then writing her synopsis. This will probably be hardest for you because it will take longer, and it might be painful at first as she struggles with pronouncing and deciphering each word, but it is worth the effort! Continue reading out loud to her, but give her 30 minutes a day of dedicated reading time where she reads instead of you. (Caution: many parents make the mistake of discontinuing read-alouds once the child is reading by herself, but this is a big mistake. They need to hear an advanced reader speak difficult words and add inflection, pauses, and emphasis where needed.)

Here are some constructive ways to spend that 30 minute daily reading and writing time. (Don’t worry if you spend more than 30 minutes in the beginning…they’ll pick up speed as they gain proficiency):

1. Select a familiar book that is below her reading level (easy.)

2. Have her read the book out loud.

3. Select a new book from your own collection or from the weekly library trip that is slightly above her abilities. (difficult.)

4. Have her read this book out loud, too.

5. Work on a letter or letter blend in your ABC book, or play a game.

When you think she has mastered her ABCs (both upper and lowercase), you can introduce a handwriting book or purchase a handwriting pad at the local school supply store and create your own contextual words and sentences for her to copy as she practices writing.

Adding narration, dictation, and copywork through stories

When you begin to notice progress, create another blank book for her stories and incorporate this step in the daily routine:

Write a short story together. Let her generate the idea. In the beginning, have her dictate the story, and you write it down. Spell the word back to her before moving on to the next word. Repeat the entire sentence as it is completed. As she progresses in her skills, have her copy your dictation. Eventually, she can write her own story. (It can be 1-2 sentences long in the beginning.)

Here are two options for the story book.

Option one: take a blank piece of copy paper and turn it so that the short side (8 1/2”) is north. Draw a horizontal line about 2/3 down the page. Then draw lines like wide-ruled notebook paper under the horizontal line to fill the bottom 1/3. First she will write the story on the lines, then she’ll illustrate the story above the text. (This is also great for narrating and dictating daily Bible stories.)

Option two: have Kinkos bind 100 blank pages like the alphabet book, but this time use one side for the draft and the opposing side for the final, proofed text. Open the book flat, turn the book sideways so that the 11” side is north and have her write the first draft of the story on the top page. Have her read it and decide if she likes it the way it is. Gently correct any errors with a red pen, and add any new adjectives or details that she wants to add in red. Then have her recopy the edited draft on the bottom page. This is valuable groundwork for the 3^rd stage of the Trivium, “Communicating Effectively.”

Have her read her story to Daddy when he gets home or to brothers and sisters after she’s completed it. Affirmation of her accomplishment will greatly contribute to her joy in her new skills!

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So there you have it, step one of the classical trivium, “Learning the Language.” Your children learn the language through hearing, seeing, speaking, and writing.* All efforts to teach the language should result in the ultimate message that language, both spoken and written, has meaning or purpose. Spend the early childhood years helping your child master the language so that they have the necessary tools for steps two and three of the classical trivium, “Thinking Critically” and “Communicating Effectively,” respectively.

Focus your energies on copious amounts of reading of great variety, and dump the public school myth that would have you believe you need to plop the kids down with workbooks and textbooks by subject!

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To recap, the posts of this series on “Learning the Language,” are:

Learning the Language through Listening

Reading Aloud: the Key to Language Development

What is the Purpose of Reading?

Is Phonics Instruction Really Necessary for Teaching Reading?

Practicing the Mechanics of Beginning Writing

*(For those of you who are wondering where “English Grammar” is in this laundry list, you’ll have to wait until step 2, “Thinking Critically.” ) If you think this series will encourage a friend who is already homeschooling or thinking about homeschooling, please tell her about The Classical Scholar by forwarding this post.

Considering the sheer volume of available choices, phonics home school products have to be one of the most popular purchases that home school parents make! If you browse catalogs or the vendor booths at home school conventions, you’ll agree. Games. Readers. Flashcards. Songs. Phonics product after phonics product woo homeschool parents with tempting promises like these:

“provide the skills for children to become lifelong readers”

“a proven system that teaches children to read”

“develop readers who can get meaning from print”

Rainbow Resource Center carries an astounding 410 different phonics products! Even respected mathematics giant, Saxon Publishers, offers two different phonics programs. According to economic theory, demand drives the supply, so home school parents must believe that phonics programs are necessary, but is this belief founded in reality?

For over a century, American educators have debated the usefulness of phonics instruction in teaching reading. Horace Mann introduced the “look-say” method where a child memorizes sight words instead of sounding out the letters. My own public school education in the 1960s utilized the famous look-say readers, “Dick and Jane” and their dog, Spot. I still remember reading “See Spot. See Spot run.” Sight reading was the norm, but gratefully, my mother taught me how to sound out the letters and letter blends at home during our story time so that I became a proficient reader despite my public school education.

In 1955, reading and writing expert, Rudolf Flesch published a controversial book entitled “Why Johnny Can’t Read” (later revised in 1981 in “Why Johnny Still Can’t Read”) in which he proposed that phonics instruction was the missing link to American literacy. Flesch was considered a pariah and was ridiculed by the education establishment.

I don’t know what method the public schools in your neighborhood are using to teach reading, but here in Indianapolis, my next door neighbors are still bringing home sight words to memorize for weekly spelling exams; when their rising 3^rd grader still couldn’t read after 2 years of instruction, the parents hired a reading tutor in exasperation! In 1990 and 1997, the United States Congress commissioned studies to determine why public school kids couldn’t read. Both reports concluded that phonics instruction was a necessary component of teaching reading and learning to spell. Nearly 30 years after the first Congressional study, my local public school is still using the ineffective “look-say” method!

Instruction in phonics involves teaching kids to pronounce the sounds of letters first then the sounds of letter blends. Once the child knows how to pronounce the letters and the blends, he can effectively “sound out” any combination of single-syllable words and eventually move on to words with multiple syllables. In effect, phonics instruction teaches the alphabetic code, and once children know this code, they can effectively decode unknown words. For example, the child who learns the high frequency anchors (also known as roots or “rimes” by linguists) can change the first letter and build countless new words (the anchor “-ook” can become book, look, cook, took, etc.)

So, it looks like all those homeschool parents purchasing phonics materials know something that public school parents don’t know: phonics instruction is a necessary component of learning how to read. (Surprise, surprise!) One caution though…since the classical Christian education emphasizes literature over manufactured “readers” (those books that are in the phonics packages that are scripted around repeating certain letters and letter blends), use phonics instruction as a supplement to “living books.” Don’t substitute the phonics readers for real books. The kids will be bored and won’t catch the excitement of a well-written story. And please don’t start with flashcards and rote memorization drills. Start reading daily with young children and only introduce phonics after you’ve instilled a love for the written word!

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Have you been enjoying this series on step 1 of the Trivium, “Learning the Language?” Click on the links below to read the previous posts:

Learning the Language through Listening

Reading Aloud: the Key to Language Development

What is the Purpose of Reading?

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I’ve got lots more to share on the subject of teaching reading, but for now, I will move on to my final post in this series which will be on the importance of writing in learning the native language.

On a housekeeping note, as I look back over these posts, I notice that I am writing longer and longer posts. Would you mind telling me through the comments section whether my post length is too long, too short, or just right? I want to value your time, so please let me know if I need to write shorter posts. Thanks!

As I explained in Teach the Skills of the Trivium, classical homeschooling begins with the following three skills: (1) learning the primary language, (2) learning to think critically, and (3) learning to communicate effectively. “Learning the primary language” is the topic of this series. In Learning the Language through Listening, I discussed three steps you can take to ensure that your kids are learning the language through hearing. In Reading Aloud: the Key to Language Development, I gave you 8 suggestions for raising kids who love to read. You might think that your child is translating the symbols on the paper into sounds in their head, but what he is really doing is translating the letters on the page into meaning. Comprehension is the subject of this post.

Understanding the Language

Do you remember those first board books that you used to read to your children? You’d hold your little one in your lap and point to the pictures and words as you read out loud. Perhaps you’d move your finger from left to right as the sentence progressed. Eventually your child began to point with you, and soon he excitedly “read” his favorite book to you! Why is learning to read so compelling? Because even the young child realizes that reading is not only fun, but reading is both useful and meaningful! The child learns that in the

“hodge-podge of black on white is a story, somewhat like the stories that Dad tells at bedtime, but steadier and simpler in its variation of words and nuances. In its many rereadings, the story will become part of the child’s world of imaginative experiences. And she will crave for ever more new ones.” (Seymour Itzkoff, Children Learning to Read)

Reading is not just sounding out letters in perfect articulation. Reading is comprehending, understanding, or making sense out of the printed text. The search for meaning should be the primary purpose of reading. Even a colorful board book has meaning that the child can comprehend.

One of Meredith’s favorite board books, Goodnight Moon by Margaret Wise Brown, is about a bunny who postpones bedtime by telling all the objects in the room “good night.” In this example, the cute little bunny represents the little child, and the mama bunny represents the child’s mother. Meredith may not have been able to verbalize her comprehension at the time, but she understood that, like the little bunny, she could try to stall bedtime, but eventually she would have to go to sleep. Likewise, the text of sophisticated books, newspaper articles, and instruction manuals all have one final purpose: to convey meaning.

Seeing the printed text is an opportunity for learning the language. There are certain universal concepts about the printed word which every child needs to learn:

* print contains an exact message

* print can be letters and words which have individual sounds

* print corresponds one-to-one with the spoken word

*print progresses from left to right across the page and from top to bottom (with some exceptions)

*print progresses from the front page to the back page of a book

Children are incredible problem-solvers. For the youngest children, pictures act as clues to the meaning. As the books get more difficult, the pictures become less important, and the child has to determine the meaning of the passage from the text. Encourage your child to build a meaningful story in his head as he reads. Emphasize that every book has a lesson to be learned, a story to be told, or an event to relate so that over time he realizes that his foremost task in reading is understanding. In fact, problem-solving skills start with reading comprehension, so when you teach your children to look for meaning, you are helping them develop Skill Set Number 2 of the Trivium, critical thinking!

How can you help your child understand the meaning of the text?

One of the hallmarks of a classical education is the use of Socratic Dialogue in which you ask the child what the text means instead of telling the child what the text means.

*Ask LOTS of questions before you begin the book (and have your teen do the same!) by looking at the cover, the title page, and back cover. Flip through the pages and try to predict what the story will be about by browsing the pictures.

*Ask LOTS of questions AS you are reading the story (or after each day’s chapter for a teen). Find a good stopping place, and ask whether your predictions were correct? What will happen next? How will it end? (An older child is ready for more difficult questions about character analysis, plot, or cause and effect.)

*After you’ve read the story, have your child narrate the story back to you. Make sure he can tell you the beginning, the middle, and the end. Teens should be able to identify the hero, villan, conflicts, climax, and moral or application to his own life. If you want to enrich their learning, occasionally have them write their understanding. I’ll cover this in more detail later.

Another hallmark of classical home schooling is inductive reasoning. Consider the steps: (1) observe, (2) interpret, and (3) apply. In the case of a book, your child observes the details of the story, interprets the meaning of the story, then (hopefully) applies the lesson learned. Back to my example of Meredith and Goodnight Moon, my toddler observed that on every page the little bunny said goodnight to the things in her room (observation.) Then she understood that all little bunnies (and little girls) had to go to sleep even if they didn’t want to (interpretation.) Finally, she applied the lesson learned by allowing me to turn out the bedside light and without a peep and tuck her in for a good night’s sleep (application.) When you teach your children to think inductively, you are on your way to critical thinkers.

Like critical thinking and effective communication, reading or literacy is a cumulative, ongoing process. Think of reading as a continuum of increasing competence. Classical scholars are lifelong learners who, once they have substantially mastered the tools of the Trivium, are able to learn anything! Understanding the language involves determining the purpose or meaning of the written text as well as deciphering the code of the written text. The next post in this series on “Learning the Language” will cover a controversial homeschooling issue: phonics instruction.

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Since I published the post on 3 Simple but Significant Steps to a Classical Education, I’ve received several emails from readers with questions. If you have a question about teaching your children the primary language, especially reading, please click on the “Contact” page, and ask away. I’ll answer through email, and I just might use your question in a future post because if you’re wondering, there are bound to be other readers who are wondering, too. Looking forward to hearing from you!

Parents who read aloud to their children contribute more to early language development than any other factor. Quantity and quality of literature plays a significant part in whether you will raise early readers or not. According to reading expert Marilyn Adams (Beginning to Read):

“the most important activity for building the knowledge and skills eventually required for reading is that of reading aloud to children. In this, both the sheer amount of and the choice of reading materials seems to make a difference.”

You want to raise classical scholars. The books your kids will be reading as teenagers and young adults are complex in both content and language: classic histories, classic philosophies, classic political treatises, classic science theories, and classic literature. Pave the way to future reading comprehension and enjoyment with these eight suggestions:

Read as often as possible.

The younger your child is when you begin reading to them the better! Make reading a daily tradition like brushing teeth. Read at bedtime, and read throughout the day whenever the kids ask for a story. Even if the entire day gets sidetracked due to unforeseen obligations or distractions, don’t drop reading from the schedule. Sometimes when I’ve had to take care of emergencies, I’ve just told the kids to read until I can get back to them. Set aside time each day for the kids to read on their own. Young children can “read” story books during naptime (even if all they are doing is looking at pictures and turning the pages), and older kids can read for 30 minutes once they’re in the bed before lights are out. Show them that reading is a priority in your household.

Use real books.

Many homeschool convention vendors sell “readers” which are artificial stories built around phonics lessons. Please don’t use these for your daily reading time! My experience with them is that they are rarely as entertaining and meaningful as “living” books. Use these phonics readers occasionally when you want to reinforce a phonetic sound. When the kids are young, start with colorful hardbound stories then move on to novels. As they get older, have Dad pick a great book to read aloud like a biography of an historical figure or original source documents like The Declaration of Independence. Even if the kids are reading on their own, try to incorporate some oral readings regularly.

Be patient as your child learns the art of listening.

Don’t rush the reading. Take your time so that your child can hear all the sounds and point to all the words. This is an important step in acquiring the language as well as critical thinking. Kids who haven’t developed good listening skills rarely communicate effectively. Answer all their questions, and ask them some questions to train their listening abilities.

Put down a book that is clearly uninteresting.

Only read books that you both enjoy! Nothing is more miserable than slogging through a book that you both find boring. We all like different stories. Sometimes your homeschool friend may recommend a book that just doesn’t appeal to your child. If you find her yawning or unengaged, put that book down and find another one. In fact, let her choose the book that she wants to read.

Vary the length and subject matter.

Don’t be too predictable. If the kids think that every time you sit down to read, they are going to have to endure hours of the same topic, they will begin to dread reading time. Keep them on their toes by doing the unexpected. One day read a story. The next day read a newspaper or magazine article. Then read a longer novel. Once you start the novel, you (and the kids) will likely want to keep going through the chapters until you finish the book, but then vary the content by reading some poems. Read about all of life, not just “academics.

Plan enough time for questions.

If you’ve read my post on Socratic Dialogue, you know that asking questions is the way classical homeschoolers teach. Don’t tell them what the story means until after you’ve asked enough probing questions to determine their level of understanding. Let them try to figure it out. Leave enough time for questions both before and after the reading. Before you get started with the story, look at the book jacket, inside cover, back cover, title page, pictures, and ask the kids to predict what the story is going to be about. Or with an older teen, have them look at the table of contents with you, and let them summarize the author’s thesis. After reading, ask questions, too, about the characters, plot, events, or other meaning.

Express yourself.

Bland, dry reading is tortuous! Imitate the voices of actors who have pleasant reading voices (James Earl Jones, Jeremy Irons, and Meryl Streep come to mind) by adjusting your pace, pitch, and volume to fit the narrative. For instance let’s say you are reading a scary scene where the character is worried about what’s in the bedroom closet. Slow down and quietly whisper the words leading up to the climactic moment when the closet door is opened and the mystery revealed. Change your tone to match the content. Effective delivery makes all content more memorable.

Lead by example.

You know that our kids are great imitators. They are watching us all hours of the day, and they will naturally do what we do. So if you are not reading on a daily basis, don’t expect to raise kids who love to read. Make sure that they see how important reading is to you. When we go to the library, I get a stack of books, too. Right now, I have 11 library books stacked up on my table three of which I have opened to passages that I’m comparing. When Meredith walked in a few minutes ago and asked me what I was working on, I was able to read a quick section to her and explain what I was learning. Plan little breaks in your day so that you can read for pleasure or for home school preparation. Share interesting things that you are learning from your reading, or let them hear you chuckling over a good passage.

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In today’s culture, reading is an integral element of gathering knowledge, understanding, and wisdom. Set your children on the road to discovery by reading aloud to them!

Do you know a friend who might enjoy this post? If so, please forward it with my blessings.

In Teach the Skills of the Trivium, I explained how the three components of the Ancient Roman and Medieval trivium are skills sets that take time to teach as opposed to discrete subjects that can be learned in an academic home school year. I also emphasized that these three skills should be substantially mastered before allowing the child to pursue the study of discrete subjects. The analogy of the horse and the cart comes to mind: you cannot effectively drive a cart if the horse is behind the cart. You must first master the horse so that you can attach any variety of extras like a cart, a plow, a chariot, a pallet, or other horses. Think of the trivium as the horse and the quadrivium (or in our case “subjects”) as the cart.

The Ancient Romans called this first skill set “grammar.” The dictionary defines grammar as the system of rules governing the language which includes syntax (how sentences are put together), pronunciation (how letters and words are pronounced), semantics (what words mean), etymology (where words originated), and orthography (how words are spelled.) Over the next few posts, I’ll explore different methods for learning the primary (native) language. Today, I’ll explore learning the language through listening.

Hearing the Language

Your children have been acquiring the language ever since the day they were born. When they were young, you probably carried them on your hip and talked to them as you completed your daily tasks. You read picture books to them. You taught them the lyrics to silly songs (I still remember a favorite: “If you wake up in the morning at a quarter to two, and you don’t know just what to do…go brush your teeth!“) You taught them nursery rhymes. You corrected their pronunciation when their first attempts were adorable misses. Hearing the language is the first step to proper pronunciation, pitch, rhythm, accentuation, and inflection.

But learning the language through hearing doesn’t end with toddlers. I’m still learning the language at 46 years old! How do I learn the language through hearing? I listen to intelligent, challenging teaching CDs, watch quality movies or news programs, and engage in regular conversations with people who use good language like my husband and friends. It is through hearing that I learn how to pronounce new vocabulary words and how to pace my conversations for maximum effect.

So what steps can you take to help your children learn the language through listening?

Read to them daily

If they are still young, make reading out loud a daily tradition. Pick a time of day for all the kids to gather on the couch for a snuggle and a good picture or chapter book. If they are older and want to read the book on their own then read interesting newspaper articles to them around the table, or read a passage from the book that you are currently reading and share with them what you are learning!

If you have children of all ages, have the big brother or sister read daily to the little ones. One friend of mine has two girls: a teenager and an 8 year old; they both really enjoyed their special “sister time” when the older daughter read the American Girls series to her little sister, and it gave Mom time to spend teaching their son.

Listen to quality audio regularly

We like to listen to books when we are traveling long distances in the car. G. A. Henty, a popular author of historical fiction, is particularly appealing to boys (probably because he always includes battles), and the vocabulary and sentence structure is always challenging. Lamplighter Books carries several audio versions of Henty by Jim Hodges.

Focus on the Family Radio Theatre classics like Les Miserables, The Secret Garden, and The Chronicles of Narnia are good choices that will engage your children’s attention. My teens have also listened to sermons on CD (Doug Phillips of Vision Forum) and online (John Piper of Desiring God Ministries.)

For older teens, The Teaching Company offers countless opportunities to learn the specialized language of various disciplines like Biology, Advanced Mathematics, or Psychology.

Include them in conversations

My kids learn more sophisticated language by eavesdropping! When David and I talk, we usually try to throw in a new vocabulary word or two just to keep the kids asking questions. They hear the way we structure our sentences and the way we pronounce those new words, and they naturally imitate what they hear. Socialize with other like-minded families who care about using proper language. The positive peer pressure will cause all the kids to speak with style.

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One leading literacy expert states that 10 year olds have a vocabulary ranging from 3,000 to 40,000 words! Do you know which kids have the largest vocabulary? Of course you do! The kids with the greatest vocabulary are the ones who are regularly exposed to the spoken word through great literature and adult conversations. So if you want to raise classical scholars who have mastered the language, read to them and include them in conversations every day!

Next in this series on Acquiring the Language, Skill Set Number 1 of the Trivium is “Reading Aloud: the Key to Language Development in your Homeschooler.“

As a parent who likes to follow the news of successful home schooling students, you’ve probably heard about the Scripps Howard National Spelling Bee and how homeschoolers like 2007 champion, Evan O’Dorney, continue to surprise the public by winning! But you probably haven’t heard about a new scholarship opportunity for homeschoolers: the Princeton Review National Vocabulary Championship.

The Game Show Network and the Princeton Review teamed up last year to host the 1st annual National Vocabulary Championship which is “an initiative that aims to inspire students to expand their vocabularies” by offering free educational resources and awarding over $100,000 annually in college tuition scholarships. The contest is open to public and home school students. Eligible home school students are in grades 9-12 and between the ages of 13 and 19. Each day during the month of November 2007, the timed National Qualifying Exam which consists of 45 multiple choice questions is available for home school students to take online. The top scorers will be invited to take the regional in-person exam on January 12, 2008 which is like the qualifying exam except it also includes an essay. Fifty finalists will then advance to Los Angeles, California in the spring 2008 to compete for the top scholarship of $40,000.

Now before you dismiss this idea, you’ve got to go see the best part of this offer which, in my opinion, is the extensive list of study modules! There are 10 modules which help build vocabulary:

1. Mnemonic Madness

2. Compliment or Criticism?

3. What’s the Link?

4. Using Context

5. Using Context, part 2

6. Dictionaries, Etymologies, and Thessauri…Oh My!

7. Vocabulary Journaling

8. Secondary Meanings

9. The Perfect Roommate

10. Analogies

Each ~20 page module begins with a lesson, then a couple of independent activities to reinforce the teaching, a quiz, and flashcards to help them retain the vocabulary words that they studied! The modules are all in adobe pdf format which means you can save them to your computer for later use (think siblings!) or print them out now for your high school student. Additionally, there are 5 documents which list the 250 most frequently tested SAT vocabulary words. Here’s a screenshot:

Princeton Review Hit Parade 1

Princeton Review Hit Parade 2

Princeton Review Hit Parade 3

Princeton Review Hit Parade 4

Princeton Review Hit Parade 5

Now, I don’t know about you, but even if you do not want to have your teen take the National Vocabulary Qualifying Exam before the end of November, you will agree with me that the free study aids are invaluable and could really supplement your home school English curriculum! As I mentioned, the exam is ONLY given in November which means you only have about 2 weeks left to take it (sorry, i just learned about it this week). One of the things that I love about homeschooling is the flexibility…in fact, I’ve decided to put the 10 vocabulary modules and the SAT Vocabulary Hit Parade lists on the schedule next week for both Meredith and Connor, then they can take the online National Vocabulary Qualifying Exam the week of November 26, 2007. I look forward to hearing the announcement on the national news next spring that your home school teen has won a big college scholarship!