In What Homeschool Subjects to Teach and When to Teach Them Part 1, I laid out the general subjects to cover and gave you a rule of thumb as to when to cover them.
As you can see from that subject list that subjects like art, music, foreign language and physical education, to name a few were not included. Why?
Foolproof Way to Choose Homeschool Subjects
This does not mean that they are not important, but it does mean that you determine their importance in your family’s journey.
Should the subjects go above the line (see my document on Part 1) or below the line?
Above the line subjects are vital to your family’s goals or essential and without them you feel your child would not receive a superior education. And below the line are subjects that are important, but may not be necessary to meet your goal in education.
This reminds me of a homeschool family that I helped that were mostly interested in physical education and scholarships for their son for football.
The whole family was athletic and such a joy to support. However, art ranked very low on their family’s goals.
To meet their family’s goal, physical education had to take up a good part of their day after the 3 Rs.
The point in all of this is that the subjects listed on Part 1 are to give you the framework and are at the core of a superior education. After that, you need to determine the importance of other subjects to your family.
Switching gears on you now because I want to hone in on language arts and give you some specifics about it.
Out of all the subjects, it seems that language arts is the area that needs to be demystified.
There seems to be this cloud of uncertainty as to what language arts is and what it compromises of in any grade.
Language arts at its very basic meaning simply means these four areas:
1. Spelling
2. Reading
3. Writing
4. Grammar
As you can see those subjects will draft in other ones like phonics and vocabulary.
For example, a child cannot read well unless he has some phonics and that phonics cannot stop in the first or second grade just because a child is advanced or already reading chapter books.
Phonics has many levels and the basic level is letter recognition and sounds. It has been my experience that some children do well by studying phonics intensely while reading and others focus on reading and understand phonics as they go along.
I have seen some programs continue until fourth grade as well. The point is that phonics is part of the core subjects that make up the 3 Rs and without a good foundation in these subjects a child may not be equipped for lifelong learning.
Too, vocabulary is needed if your child wants to write well and understand what he is reading.
It may not need to be a separate subject. I feel vocabulary is best taught in the context of what the child is reading and not as a separate subject, unless of course you have the time to do so.
Mastering Homeschool Subjects
Then writing includes both penmanship and composition.
In the early grades, penmanship is what we want to achieve so that soon thereafter the mechanics of writing will be mastered and so that the child can now focus on composing his thoughts.
A well written composition is no easy task but harder yet if the basics of penmanship are not mastered.
Do not wait to teach penmanship until later grades.
By grade three, you want your child to be comfortable with the mechanics of writing.
In my journey, I taught all of my sons cursive first and used a simplified version of cursive since I was not impressed with the superfluous cursive I had been taught. By third grade, cursive was mastered.
Two of the reasons children dislike penmanship is that it is not taught early enough so that they have time to fine tune their motor skills and the other is that a parent may choose an old fashion traditional cursive script like the Palmer method and that could add to the struggle.
I used a version of simple script by Calvert, which combined the easy use of print on cap letters and it was free of a lot of the extra curves and lines that the Palmer method of traditional cursive that I learned in school.
Each kid mastered the script as I taught it to them.
Penmanship gets a bum rap because I hear moans from parents and kids alike, but the secret is to introduce it early and be consistent each day.
It’s not a skill that you do once a week. Penmanship should be one or two well written sentences every day with the focus on neatness and legibility.
When you wait until third grade, the child’s writing habits, good or bad are already formed and so it’s hard to add composition on top of that.
Then when it is time to teach composition, your child is not frustrated because he lacks the basics of penmanship and he can now focus on penning his beautiful thoughts.
Reading is another subject that can be misunderstood. From the beginning there should be an emphasis on the purpose of reading.
No, it’s not just about comprehension.
Homeschool Curriculum Helps
Comprehension is important, but to form a love for reading into adulthood a child has to view it as pleasure. Constant worksheets and record keeping of what he is reading does not inspire a child to want to read into adult hood.
Boy or Girl? Teaching Reading Needs to Be Different
Reading changes after about grade 4 from learning how to read to reading to learn, a big difference.
Some children, especially girls are very early and mature readers and can be reading well by the age of four or so. Boys normally struggle on until about 8 years of age until they master reading.
When I first started teaching my sons to read, I didn’t like the statistics I read about how boys are normally behind girls when learning to read. My focus was to be sure my boys didn’t fall by the side and it was my goal for them to read early and to love it.
With a lot of hard work and not missing any precious days when they were little, I got pretty close to my target. I had two early readers and one that read later, but then again I learned that personality plays a huge part with boys too.
Once each of my sons reached the significant milestone of reading, then I could focus on other areas of learning and their appetite can now be satisfied as to what interests them in their education.
Geography, history and science are important to cover, but you may miss the small window of time needed with the core subjects because you focused so much on subjects that can wait a bit.
Do you see now why content subjects {geography, history and science} can wait later?
There are only so many hours in the days and when your day is prioritized with giving core subjects time first, you are making time for the subjects that will equip him for a lifetime of learning.
Then again, I do have secret teaching tips on how to cover core subjects and learn to read or write, but I will save that for another book post, lest I write a book here.
All of this I put in a nutshell for you, but I am hoping it will help you see where you may need to include another subject or move ahead in one area.
In Part 3, I will talk about some of your concerns like time needed in each subject and how to plan multiple subjects.
Also, Part 3 will put all of this together and like a beautiful orchestra that is harmonious you can see your child’s accomplishment in each subject.
Can you start fine tuning your subjects and prioritizing them by importance to your family?
Remember, they can’t have all the same importance. Some homeschool subjects have to go below the line. I have another help for you.
Download Homeschooling Multiple Children Not So Secret Planning Sheet Here.
Grab this form and start planning your subjects. Fill it in and determine if you have over planned or under planned or if you think you have a doable plan that can be accomplished for the day.
Hugs and love ya,
Grab some of these other reads:
Teaching Handwriting When Homeschooling the Early Years Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3.
Teaching Homeschooled Boys How to Read – When to Panic
How to Use a History Spine to Build Your Own Study of History
