Minnesota Homeschooler's Alliance Conference

Salaams/Hello! This weekend I went to the Minnesota Homeschooler's Alliance conference in New Brighton. It was SUPER INFORMATIVE. I really enjoyed myself and there was a lot of food for thought as you can imagine. I am planning on going through my notes over the next few days and typing them up coherently - so I thought perhaps I'd just cut and paste them over here too so you can share in whatever knowledge I *may* have gleaned.

The first session I went to was called "For the Love of Reading" - a workshop with the co-founders of the National Homeschool Book Award aimed towards helping facilitate the use of books as a basis for homeschool curriculum, and demonstrating the lasting value of reading in your child's life, whatever age.

Here are my notes:

Session 1: For the Love of Reading

Why read aloud to your child once they can read on their own?

- conditions child to associate reading with pleasure/happiness

- creates background knowledge on many subjects

- builds “book” vocabulary

- provides a reading role model

Reading aloud is the single best activity to build reading success. See research by Jim Trelease.

Children can LISTEN at a much higher level than they can read. This is an opportunity to get through some more challenging material together - giving them new vocabulary, exposure to more complex sentence structure and sophisticated topics. Books contain more "rare" words that won't be found as often in conversation/speech.

Don’t forget that it’s okay to “stop and dig”. You can stop at a suspenseful part (or ANY part) and just ask your child what she/he thinks is coming next, or discuss the action so far. Never be afraid to put the book down and do research or even just draw a picture.

It’s ok to have more than one book going with them at a time. Do you get confused when you watch 2 different tv shows? No, you can follow 2 completely different storylines/characters etc without getting confused. So can they.

When beginning a book always start with the author and illustrator – shows our kids that books are made by PEOPLE not by machines.

You can make ANY book into a study or a curriculum. USE GOOGLE. Type in the book title and “activities”. Lots of great resources will pop up.

Other texts that help for creating unit studies surrounding books include “The Kid’s Book Club Book” and “Story Stretchers”, as well as the Five in A Row h/s curriculum. See also “Raising Bookworms” and “Reading Magic”.

The National Homeschool Book Award searches for book that relate to homeschoolers and the winner is determine by vote every fall. Also you can visit their sister site “What we’re reading” for other great ideas.

Activities for kids to do while you read aloud:

- play with lego

- draw or colour

- play with beads

- origami

- knit

- tie fleece blankets

- lanyard tying

- puzzles

- needlework/embroidery

- k’nex magnetix

- clay or playdough

- fold laundry

- have a meal or snack

Tips for readers:

- try a new location

- get yourself a beverage

- if no one likes the book, STOP and find one you like

- ask friends for recommendations

Links:

Kids Book Club Book website

www.trelease-on-reading.com

www.nationalhomeschoolbookaward.com