Do you remember the commercials for “Hooked on Phonics?” “I am hooked on phonics. I am learning to read . . . ” Those lines are etched in my memory.

“Hooked on Phonics” was the way thousands of parents helped their children learn to read in the 80s and 90s. Some still use it, but now your child can be hooked on phonics online, because homeschoolers are avid users of the internet for educational purposes.

I used an online phonics curriculum to help my son learn phonics, along with workbooks, and of course, reading, reading, and more reading to him. He’s in 4th grade and is reading at 8th grade level. He loved the interactive piece where an onscreen character would pronounce a phonetic sound or word, and he repeated it.

Another part of intensive phonics online, my son loved was clicking on the right answer. The program would present him with a choice among three or more answers, then he would make his choice. If he got the answer right, the online character would clap or say, “Great job, you’re a phonics superstar!” or if the answer was incorrect, the character might say, “Almost got it, try again.” He would glow when he got the correct answer, and he would be challenged to keep trying if his answer was incorrect.

Children love this approach, because there are no “Xs” for incorrect answers–just encouragement to continue moving along the positive phonics path. For correct answers, there are lots of bells and whistles, and this serves as motivation for your child to keep up the excellent work.

There’s no doubt that intensive phonics is needed to teach a child to learn to read. Yes, there are sight words that don’t fit into the phonics rules, and there are always exceptions to those rules. But once your child learns phonics, she will become a better reader. She will always “sound out” new words, because that is what she’s learned.

Your child will apply all the phonics rules and word sounds to words he’s never seen before. Although he may not necessarily pronounce the new word correctly, when he applies what he’s learned, he’ll be closer to a correct pronunciation than those who learned to read by the whole language method.

Don’t you wish there had been online phonics when you were learning to read? My son found it to be a fun and exciting way to learn!

Share your experience with phonics by leaving a comment.

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.

When I tell other moms that I homeschool my son, they sometimes give me a strange look. I’m an African American single (divorced) mother, and I just don’t fit their idea of who a homeschooler should be. I only have one child, and they think that’s another odd thing about me homeschooling. The first question I  often get is, “Why don’t you want him to be at school with other children?” Then I’ll patiently explain that he goes to a group meeting with other children on Mondays, classes on Wednesdays, and a homeschool co-op on Fridays. When I assure the mom that I don’t have my boy on lock down in the house, she looks relieved.

Then, she’ll ask me about the co-op, and I’ll tell her that the kids who go to homeschool co-op, including my son, take classes there once a week. Sometimes the mom (or dad) will ask what kind of classes, and I tell them, “Oh, different kinds of classes, like Spanish, Science, Art, Photography, English, History, and other stuff.” I add that this semester, my son is taking “Exploratory Art” and “Digital Photography.” This leads to more discussion about his academic classes and where I get my teaching materials. I tell her about the Great Literature and books we read, about the “What Your __ Grader Needs to Know” books, workbooks, field trips, and about the online curriculum we use, Time4Learning.

Usually, the mom asks a question about standardized tests and how I’ll know if my child is at grade level if he has to take the ISAT (Illinois Standards Achievement Test). I’ll then mention that although I don’t have to get my child tested, I may start doing this. But I also mention that the online program we use let’s me know if he’s at “grade level,” although for me, it’s more important that he master the material than be at a particular grade level  by a certain date.

These impromptu talks usually go well, and when I’m done I’ll often feel like I’ve given someone, who may have never met a homeschooler, especially one who doesn’t fit the prototype, a positive impression about homeschooling.

Other homeschooling moms probably get a lot of questions too. Do you?

My strong recommendation for those homeschooling and using the web is to check out the following.

 Time4Learning’s web-based online curriculum.  They have great interactive lessons for middle school, elementary school, and even preschool.  It’s highly interactive and full of animation and multimedia. Whereas some curriculum are just lots of text with an occassional video or animation, Time4Learning is an interactive experience.  All those tough math concepts seem simple when they’re explained in such alight-hearted manner.  Who says fractions has to be hard? Their great multimedia lays it out so simply.  Give it a try.  Time4Learning is a great homeschool partner. They let you sign up month to month and start and quit at any time. Start by looking at their lesson demos.
 

 Number 2 choice – Time4Writing.  If you are like me, you find some subjects hard to teach.  One of the hardest is writing skills, especially when the kids get into middle and high school.  Expectations are so high. And my kids just don’t react well to my correcting their writing. Want help?  This isn’t a “how to”, it’s an online tutoring course where they work directly with your student teaching writing skills every week and giving one-on-one feedback.  You get the same tutor for the whole eight week course which the kids really like. It’s definitely worth taking Time4Writing’s writing classes. They have sentence writing, paragraph writing, essay writing (these are for writing tests and college essays), and research paper writing.
 
 
Number 3 choice – Fun Building Vocabulary. This is not really a curriculum choice but a fun collection of vocabulary games. Vocabulary is Fun is a leading vocabulary website worldwide with the best flash online word games.  The vocabulary games include an online word search, an online crossword puzzle, and hangman online (their version is called HangMouse).  Users choose the vocabulary list that the online word game will use in the word game. So have some Fun Building Vocabulary.  
 
 
Number 4 Choice – Spelling City. This spelling program should be used by everyone. I would have put it first but I’m not a huge believer in the importance of spelling skills.  Despite that, now that I’m using this site, I’ve returned to having spelling as part of our weekly routine.  You know what’s really cool, check out how the vocabulary site’s science songs have put their vocabulary/spellinglist on SpellingCity.
 
 
Number 5 choice – This learning games website is really what it sounds like.  But they have the best collections.  For instance, they have keyboarding games, memory games,  science songs (also integrated with vocabulary lists), and math learning games.