Proven Advice To Give Your Kids A Great Education At Home

Many parents are disgusted with the dismal"In contrast, the homeschooled child who spends
education their kids get in public school, but thinkonly two hours per day, seven days a week,
they wouldn't have the time to homeschool theiryear-round, on basics alone, logs over three times
kids because both parents (or single moms) haveas many hours 'on task' in a given year than does
jobs.his public school counterpart. Moreover, unlike the
The good news is that even working parents canpublic school child, whose day is largely taken up
homeschool their kids. Parents don't have toby non-task activities, the homeschooled child has
depend on vouchers or charter schools, which areample time left each day to take part in other
few and far between. The time you will need toactivities - athletics, art, history, etc..."
teach your children the basics - reading, writing,So, according to the authors, if home-schooled
and arithmetic - is much less than you think.children study for only two hours a day, year
Most parents are not aware of the fact that forround, they will get three times more educational
over 200 years in this country, before we everhours on academic basics like reading, writing, and
had public schools, most working parents taughtarithmetic than public-school students get.
their kids to read and do arithmetic at home. LetNot only does teaching your child the basics at
me quote author and former public-school teacherhome take far less time than you thought, but
John Gatto from his wonderful book, "Dumbing Usteaching these skills is even easier today because
Down":parents now have tons of education resources
"Were the colonists geniuses? [i.e., why did ouravailable to them such as the Internet and
colonial forefathers have literacy rates close to 90computer learning software. Also, bookstores like
percent?]. No, the truth is that reading, writing,Barnes and Noble and Borders have whole
and arithmetic only take about 100 hours [italicssections full of books about teaching your child to
added] to transmit as long as the audience isread, write, and do basic math, as well as books
eager and willing to learn. . . . Millions of peoplethat will interest and challenge young readers.
teach themselves these things. It really isn't veryOnce your children learn to read well, the whole
hard. . ."world of learning opens to them. They can
To be conservative, let's assume that becauseexplore any subject that interests them, and read
you're not an experienced teacher it takes youever more difficult material by themselves in
three hundred hours to teach your child thesebooks or on the computer. For a small
skills with the help of learn-to-read phonicssubscription fee, your children can study the entire
workbooks and computer software. ThreeEncyclopedia Britannica on the Internet. They can
hundred hours, divided by the average six-houraccess almost every major library in the world
public school day, comes out to fifty school days,through the Internet, including the Library of
which is about ten weeks or three months.Congress. If your kids love to read and learn, the
Let me emphasize this point - it could take you,Internet provides unlimited resources.
or a tutor you pay, as little as three months toOnce your children read fluently, you can point
teach your child to read, write, and do simplethem towards your local library or bookstore,
arithmetic. Again, to be even more conservative,supervise their studies, and see where their
most children could learn these skills in one year ifinterests lie. Your job is to introduce your kids to
you (or a tutor) concentrated your instruction onas many different subjects and resources as
these basics. Public schools take eight to twelvepossible. Have them take art classes at the local
years of children's lives, yet they turn out millionsYMCA, library, or arts and crafts store. Introduce
of high-school graduates who can barely readthem to different kinds of music. See if they
their own diploma or multiply 12 x15 without aenjoy a music lesson on the piano, guitar, or
calculator.drums. Give them classic novels by great authors
David Colfax and his wife Micki were public-schoolto read.
teachers turned ranchers who taught their fourMost home-schooling parents spend about three
sons at home in the 1970s and 1980s, and threeto four hours a day homeschooling their kids. The
of their sons eventually went to Harvard. Theykey point to remember is that you have many
co-authored a book titled Homeschooling Foroptions and a vast amount of education resource
Excellence, which describes their home-schoolingmaterial available to help you homeschool your
experience. In their book, they compared thechildren and quickly teach them the basics.
time a child wastes in public school to the timeThe Resource section in my book, "Public Schools,
average home-schooling parents need to teachPublic Menace" lists a wealth of education
their children the basics. Here's what they wrote:resources parents can take advantage of right
"The numbers are straightforward and irrefutable.now. You do not have to depend on vouchers or
The child who attends public school typicallycharter schools. When you take advantage of all
spends approximately 1100 hours a year there,the education resources available to you,
but only twenty percent of these-220-are spent,home-schooling can be fairly easy and take much
as the educators say, 'on task.' Nearly 900 hours,less time than you think.
or eighty percent, are squandered on what areDon't your kids deserve the great education you
essentially organizational matters."can give them?