Wednesday, November 10, 2010

An Eclectic Approach to Homeschooling

Abeka remains extremely popular but is often now used in conjunction with other materials and curricula.

Most families discover that their children's educational needs cannot be met by a single curriculum, and that blending several homeschool programs and approaches can increase effectiveness. This electic homeschool approach provides an optimal outcome. Time4Learning's experience shows that there is no single, best homeschool material. Rather than feeling torn between homeschool resources, parents should create diversity through different materials and activities. 

Time4Learning Works Well with A Beka®'s Online Learning Curriculum

All children learn differently and most respond very well to online delivery of homeschool materials. In addition, some children need to see a topic or concept presented in more than one way before what's being taught "clicks" for them. Time4Learning's engaging, interactive style complements the Abeka online workbook-based program and vice versa.
Time4Learning offers interactive, self-paced instruction in math, language arts, reading, social studies and science. Many families report that using Time4Learning in conjunction with A Beka has enhanced their child's academic success. Time4Learning's online educational software can be used as either a core or supplemental curriculum.

Wednesday, November 3, 2010

Teaching Writing

 is an ongoing process, which Time4Learning facilitates in a number of ways.
Most people agree that writing skills are increasingly important and often not adequately taught.
When writing is taught in schools, writing instruction often takes a backseat to phonics, handwriting skills, and reading comprehension.

Many homeschool parents find that teaching writing may be more challenging than other subjects where there is an answer key. Children can challenge their parent's feedback.

Effective writing is a vital life-skill that is important in almost every subject in school as well in the work world.  Additionally, standardized tests increasingly contain a writing component - - in some cases this includes a requirement to write an essay on a timed test. 


Helps Teach Writing starting with carefully constructed assignments to stimulate students' desire to communicate, to integrated prereading graphic organizers, easy-to-use word processor with simple revising tools to the grading guides (writing rubriques) provided to parents and teachers in the teaching guides and answer keys,


Building  words is key to reading, to writing, to verbal expression, and in many ways, vocabulary is key to building analytical and critical thinking. A person's vocabulary skills can be measured in terms of building receptive vocabulary (ie understanding) words and their expressive vocabulary words. People can build their expressive vocabulary in two ways that can get measured: the written vocabulary words or their spoken vocabulary words. Building vocabulary skills improves reading comprehension and reading fluency. Without building a large vocabulary, students cannot read successful. 

Elementary Writing: The Writers Workshop

It seems like Writer's Workshop and Six Traits Writing are two popular approaches to learning to write in schools.  But how is a school ...