Homeschooling moms should be commended for their dedication to the education of their children and the involvement in their children's lives. Whether you are new to homeschooling or have been homeschooling for a few years, each step brings up more questions about how to homeschool. What do I do now? How do I handle this? I want the best for my children, but what is the best way to teach them? The Write Foundation has compiled some insightful answers to some common questions about how to homeschool. Some answers come from personal experience while some are from other experienced homeschool families and other trusted homeschool resources. Read on to find answers to some of YOUR common questions.
When 2 or more sentences are written as 1 sentence, it is a run-on sentence. Two or more sentences run together being written as 1 sentence is also called a comma splice. Run-on Sentence: The ball was rolling down the hill, it was heading for the lake. Run-on Sentence: The raccoons were waiting for their chance, they wanted the leftover cat food for their dinner.
Why spend all that time brainstorming, outlining, and pre-writing? Many student writers think they are speeding up the writing process by not brainstorming and or not outlining. Many student writers attempt to quickly write a paragraph in one “easy” step and fail. Many student writers become discouraged because they do not understand how to easily write better papers.
For many homeschoolers the GED® is NOT THE MEASURE of the education they have received, BUT IT IS THE TICKET they need to the gain entrance to universities and colleges, particularly here in South Africa. It is fast becoming very popular as an alternative school leaving certificate. Homeschooling is comparatively new in our country and homeschoolers are still fighting to earn the reputation at universities that Americans have already achieved.
Will your homeschoolers ever be able to write a paragraph that does not ramble? Will they ever be able to write with structure and style? When do you begin to teach formal writing? When are your homeschool students ready to learn how to logically organize their abstract thoughts to write paragraphs? When are they ready to learn how to write essays and skillfully communicate? Creating Sentences
Writing and spelling go hand in hand. Help your student be a better writer by helping them be a better speller. Students need to learn about phonics, root words, prefixes, suffixes, and homonyms before and while becoming a confident fluent writer. If they struggle to spell words correctly, they will struggle to write.
I wanted a writing curriculum with lesson plans already together where all I had to do was quickly review the next writing lesson, and then I was ready to teach. Preparing to teach a writing class in a homeschool co-op, I sat surrounded by writing curriculums I had collected through my years teaching Language Arts in public school and homeschooling.
Don't just throw your homeschooled-student into formal essay crafting. Focus on sentence structure and basic paragraph composition before moving to more complicated formal essay composition. Are you a competent essay writer? Even if you know how to write an essay, chances are you are dreading the coming years of teaching homeschool writing.
The writing curriculum doesn’t start with the basics. If you try to teach essay writing without a foundation of writing structure and the writing process, the results of your labor will be frustrating and fruitless.
Many students, including homeschoolers, have an aversion to sentence writing, creative writing, journaling, paragraph writing, essay writing, formal writing, informal writing, and basically any kind of writing. Students need step-by-step writing instruction beginning with sentence composition, followed by paragraph composition, and finally college level essay.
Fitting your unique child into a standardized world. More than 500,000 teens are home educated across the U.S. today. Many homeschooled students will apply to colleges and universities. Some colleges have special requirements for homeschooled students. Contact colleges where your student may be interested in applying.
What do you do when your child fights you when you try to teach them how to write? Why do students struggle writing essays? Is there a way to teach paragraph and essay writing that is not so overwhelming for students and teachers? Will your students ever master high school and college level essay writing? Many children shut down and refuse to work.
Why do so many students hate to write? Why do many homeschool moms fear teaching writing? Why can’t you just give your students a topic and say “just write the way you talk” or “write what you feel”? Creative writing can be fun, so why does formal writing cause panic?