There is help and support available for those who are on a homeschooling journey. Most of us homeschoolers find it helpful to join a homeschool support group. There is so much help available there, including likeminded parents who are homeschooling their children (for the same or different reasons), children for our kids to play with, organized field trips and outings, and lots of advice and wisdom from veteran homeschoolers.

When I began homeschooling, I couldn’t find a support group in Chicago, Illinois that met my needs. Most of the ones that would have been a good fit were far away in the suburbs and here sat I in the city with no transportation to get to the ‘burbs.

I wanted to join a Christian homeschool support group, because I felt as thought it would be a good fit and that it would meet my needs. However, I couldn’t find one no matter how hard or long I searched, so I joined a secular support group. The people were nice and helpful, and there were many veteran homeschoolers in the group; yet, it still wasn’t a good fit, because most of the children who attended the group regularly were older, and my son was only 7 years old then.

Since I couldn’t find a physical group that met my needs; I started one of the many online homeschool groups. It now has more than 80 members and is more of a resource list than a support group. Finding a good online homeschool groups is as simple as doing a search on the web; here’s a link to a site where you’ll find a group for your state:  http://time4learning.net/groups/

I later joined several other online groups that have proved to be a great support resource. Eventually, I joined a physical secular support group too. Online homeschool groups in Illinois really helped me to understand Illinois homeschooling laws and to network with other Illinois homeschoolers.

Even if you are a member of a support group that has meetings, you’ll probably find belonging to one or more online homeschool groups very helpful; you may have a question or concern, and if your online group is an active one–when you post, you’ll get an answer quickly. More than likely, it will be just what you need, exactly when you need it.

My son was a 6-year-old (almost 7) when I began teaching him to read, and it seemed as though he just wasn’t getting it. He had learned some phonics in kindergarten and recognized some sight words, but putting together everything he had learned just wasn’t happening. I tried everything from McGuffey readers to other phonics books and workbooks.

I then turned to online learn to read activities, and he took to these very quickly. He liked the animation and the online short books and stories. Soon he had completed many online reading lessons, as well as his phonics materials and books. I continued reading him stories on a daily basis. One day I realized he was reading well, and he began reading to me.

Then I began thinking, “Does he really understand what he’s reading?,” so I gave him oral book reports, asked him to explain passages he had read, had him write short summaries of his books, etc. Not only was he decoding words, but his reading comprehension was at a high level. He had exploded the reading code, and in a period of about 4 months, he proceeded to read 125 books–without me prompting him. I was overjoyed, because I had a child who loved to read!

Phonics and decoding are only part of learning to read; reading comprehension is more complicated. Your child can decode words (break them down phonetically) and really not understand what he’s reading. Sometimes when a child is learning to read, his energy is focused on decoding, so it’s hard to focus on comprehension too.

Online reading comprehension programs allow children to interact with the text, include vocabulary questions, and test them to see if they understand the text. There are read along stories as well as opportunities for children to be read to via the online audio. This makes interaction and comprehension a priority.

Making sure your daughter (or son) becomes a fluent reader with excellent reading comprehension skills can be done with the help of an online reading comprehension program.

I’d love to hear about your homeschool reading program; please share your experience or ask questions.

It didn’t take me long to get used to the idea of online homeschooling, because I began teaching my son at home via a home-based virtual public school that used online resources. They recommended that younger children do about fifteen to twenty percent of their work on the computer. I only used this home-based school for about six weeks, because I saw their curriculum wasn’t working for my son.

After this, I tried a labor intensive free curriculum that required me to print lots of books, keep lots of records, and spend lots of time preparing lessons. I did this for awhile, and for all my effort, I received an emphatic “boring” from my then 6-year-old son. So, I continued to search for an affordable curriculum. Homeschooling was becoming pure drudgery, and each day, I pieced together school work for my son, as I continued to search for excellent, affordable homeschool materials. I finally happened upon an online homeschooling curriculum that sounded too good to be true. I tried it out before I ever allowed my precocious 6-year-old to try it, and after reviewing a few Language Arts and Math lessons, I knew he would love it. I was right, and three and a half years later, he’s still loving it.

Online homeschooling resources can be helpful to your child and to you too. If your child is a visual, auditory, or kinesthetic learner, the online interactive lessons will keep her engaged. The online homeschool resources will help you too, because as your child matures, she will do her lessons independently, while you tend to your younger children or get things done around the house.

Once you begin using the online homeschooling materials, you won’t abandon your books, your unit studies, your hands-on projects, or your field trips; online resources will only be part of your home school, and your child will look forward to the lessons. You can even use those lessons to reward him for doing well with his other homeschool work.

You may have toyed with the idea of homeschool online but thought better of it, because you felt like the computer would be teaching your child instead of you. However, most homeschoolers use online homeschooling in combination with more traditional methods.

Homeschooling is all about freedom of educational choice and options. If online homeschooling materials work for your child, then don’t be afraid to use them. You may be a homeschooling mom who works from home and need some free time to check emails, answer phones, or search the internet. Online homeschooling materials will free you to do those things during the day and will also free your child to learn independent study and work skills.

Illinois doesn’t require you to initiate notification with your school district when you decide to homeschool, and it’s easy to follow Illinois homeschooling laws. There’s no specific home school statute in Illinois, but you can legally homeschool via an alternative home school statute. Check out the Home School Legal Defense Associations’s (HSLDA) website for credible information on homeschooling. There you’ll find lots of state homeschool resources; Illinois law states the following:

“If a child is ‘attending a private or a parochial school where children are taught the branches of education taught to children of corresponding age and grade in public schools, and where the instruction of the child in the branches of education is in the English language’ the child shall not be required to attend public school and the child is in compliance with Illinois compulsory attendance law.” Home schools that met these two requirements are considered legal private schools (Illinois law: 105 ILCS § 5/26-1).

Although both the HSLDA and Homeschool Legal Advantage (HLA) have summaries of homeschooling laws on their site, you should ask your librarian to help you find a copy of the Illinois homeschooling law. Yes, the HSLDA and HLA have summarized the law for you, but it’s their interpretation of the law–not the actual law. Do your research and after you read your state’s homeschooling statute/provision, then read the HSLDA’s or HLA’s interpretation of the laws. If you find the homeschooling laws on the internet, make sure it’s the actual law and that the site is a credible one.

If your child is in school, and you decide to homeschool, you should write a letter to the school principal, so no one will think he’s a truant. But if your child has never attended school, you don’t have to inform any one that you’re homeschooling him.

What you need to know has been outlined here. There are no heavy duty rules or regulations, and no standardized tests or teacher certifications are required. Now that you know the law, decide what curriculum you’re going to use, and go for it!

Do you remember when you learned to type?  I think I started in 9th grade; I’m dating myself by telling you this, but when I began typing it was on a manual typewriter. For some reason, I could never get the knack of the long reaches, i.e., the “a” key to the “1″ key with the right pinky finger or the “;” key to the “-” key with the left pinky finger. I wasn’t a good typist on that dinosaur manual typewriter.

However, a few years after high school, I went to secretarial school. They had electric typewriters, and I practiced each day. By the time I graduated (in one year), I could type 60 words per minute–not bad for a student who couldn’t type 30 minutes in high school. From years of experience, I eventually reached close to 80 words per minute.

School students nowadays start learning to keyboard long before 9th grade; some start learning before they reach their teens. My 10-year-old son, David, started using the BBC’s Dance Mat typing; I thought it might help him with his homeschool work, because he likes writing stories and journaling. I thought learning to keyboard, as they call it nowadays, would help him to get some of his work done faster. He likes fun keyboard games a lot, because it makes learning to type exciting.

I’ve been searching for other sites that will help my son to become a better keyboardist. (I think typist sounds better). There are a lot of keyboarding games that will help your child learn to type. Typing games are a great way to get your child used to the feel of the keyboard and on her way to becoming an adequate typist–and maybe even a speed typist.

I’d love to know if your kids have any favorite, typing games. Leave a comment and let me know.