There’s a lot of advice on what you should be doing in your homeschool classroom, but here’s some of the things that you should be avoiding doing with your homeschool students.
Not Using a Textbook
While you may not want to follow a formal curriculum and textbook, its a good idea to have some reading material available for your homeschool students. The written word is a powerful recall tool. It specially comes in handy if your child has a photographic memory and actually relates to words written in a certain part of the page. Even if you don’t use the same book for all the teaching you do in a subject, ensure that you have something for your child to read when you teach a new topic.
Passive Rereading
As a busy homeschooling parent you may consider it a easy way to get your child to revise what has been taught earlier on. However most students do not actively get involved in the rereading process. They may be saying the words, but they are not registering whatever they are reading with their brains. Ever so often you will find this to be true when you ask them a question about something that they just read out loud, but did not take the time to register or understand. That blank look on their face is not what you want when you set them a task of rereading a lesson.
Getting Sidetracked
Turning Study Sessions into Play Sessions can happen if you manage to get distracted by what your homeschool student wants to share with you. While it is important to know what’s on the mind of your children, make sure that they tell you their opinions at a specially designated time during the day. If you allow them to disrupt each lesson with something that they just “have to” tell you, you will end up getting consistently disturbed. That way you will never manage to finish your day’s school work and will also have to cut into the breaks that you have planned during the day. So stick with your agenda and promise them that they can share their thoughts after school is over for the day.
