My 1st. Book Review

This is a book review that I wrote about a year ago.

I have not been asked by anyone to review any books for them, nor am I reviewing books for payment.

I must give credit here to my mom for her wonderful editing skills and patience with poor spelling and punctuation. She took the time out of her busy schedual, and on short notice edited this for me. However the actual writing and format are my own.

The Three R's and

You Can Teach Your Child Successfully by

Ruth Beechick

I just finished reading this series of books by Ruth Beechick. Her methods of teaching are known as the Commen Sense method of education. After reading through these I feel I have a strong foundation for teaching my own children should I ever have a family. They are very thorough, and have given me confidence that I can even teach my children in my weak areas and have them excel.

The Common Sense method of teaching promotes parents as the best teachers for their children, and advocates the use of resources other than textbooks for the best learning. These resources include developing a lifestyle of learning, interaction, living books, and hands on opportunities.

In these books, Mrs. Beechick gives helpful charts, explanations, sample lessons, and even an overview of what children should be learning when. However, she also advises to move no faster than what the child can handle, as it is better to have mastery of the subjects at hand than to cover many items with little or no retention.

The first three booklets cover grades K-3rd. Each booklet takes on one of the three R's, since these are the foundation for all other learning in the future. Mrs. Beechick breaks down each subject into easy to follow levels that build on each other. However she also warns to master each level thoroughly before moving on, as that can be an easy temptation.

In An Easy Start In Arithmetic, you will learn how easy arithmetic can be, and how much your attitude towards the subject will affect your child either negatively of positively. You will also discover that a child goes through three different modes of thinking about arithmetic as his mind is developing, and how to effectively take advantage of each, for the best possible foundation in this subject.

In A Home Start In Reading, you will learn the five steps to teaching reading from pre-reading to fluency. You will also learn how to tell when your child is ready to learn to read and what to do in the meantime to prepare them for reading, how to teach phonics in a non-overwhelming way, and how to respond when your child doesn't seem to be catching on.

In A Strong Start In Language, You will learn how to teach language in a non-threatening way that Mrs. Beechick calls the "Powerful Natural Method", how to encourage creativity, and different methods for teaching spelling. There are many sample lessons showing you how to effectively create your own lessons using good literature.

In her book, You Can Teach Your Child Successfully, Ruth Beechick cover all subjects in grades 4th - 8th, including many samples, and charts. For each subject she gives a thorough list of guidelines to go by for each grade level.

The first subject covered is reading. This covers how to teach reading after fluency has been gained. Topics covered are reading comprehension, textual, imaginative, and functional reading. The writing section covers how to write, writing quality, mechanics, spelling, usage and grammar. The arithmetic section covers making arithmetic meaningful, how to teach for meaning and understanding, problem solving, numbers and the decimal system, and of course addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division. The last section of the book covers teaching history and social studies, science and health, music and art (even if you have no knowledge of these subjects), and how to teach the Scriptures as literature, history, and science.

I feel I have been enriched by reading these books, and even learned many things I had never understood before, especially in arithmetic and language skills: to teach for meaning and understanding, not just the ability to solve a math problem, or diagram a sentence. The principles in these books can be applied no matter what method a person uses to teach, including textbooks. I would highly recommend these books to the anyone who is new to homeschooling or has been homeschooling for years.