I’m just now preparing to begin homeschooling my oldest child, who turned five in January. I’m intending to follow a classical model. I’ve just recently found your website and I’ve read your articles on early formal education. My daughter is, in your terms, a precocious little tyke, who taught herself to read at age 3-1/2. […]

I’ve been impressed with your website and materials. Sadly, all my children are grown and gone and didn’t get the education they should have. I’m realizing I was not able to educate them well because I am not a logical person. Over the last year I have worked at it but have only made a […]

“Progress, far from consisting in change, depends on retentiveness. When change is absolute there remains no being to improve and no direction is set for possible improvement: and when experience is not retained, as among savages, infancy is perpetual. Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it. In the first stage of […]

Post may contain affiliate links to materials I recommend. Read my full disclosure statement. Taken from Endangered Minds: Why Children Don’t Think And What We Can Do About It by Jane M. Healy [Page 66] [T]he axons, or output parts of [brain] neurons, gradually develop a coating of a waxy substance called myelin, which insulates […]

Here is a Facebook conversation we recently had with a friend. Debra: I have an 8-year-old and 7-year-old (along with three littles). Both are reading very well. We read aloud a lot and love it. They want to write letters and notes. I am simply noticing a lack of any good spelling. I’m wondering if […]

Dear Laurie, I recently took my 14-year-old stepson out of public school. He’s a mess — he hates school, isn’t learning anything, and doesn’t seem to have a very long attention span. What curriculum can I buy which will teach him how to think? This is a likable young man who does not get into […]

We were sorry to hear that Samuel L. Blumenfeld died this week. Mr. Blumenfeld is known mainly for two things: 1. His work in encouraging homeschoolers during the very early days of homeschooling. He was a staunch defender of parents’ rights in education and was a pioneer, encouraging the pioneers. He supported homeschooling because “it […]

Research reveals negative effects of academic preschools and kindergartens. The author of this article asks, “What has been your experience with early education, as a parent or a teacher? What effects have you seen of early academic training, or, conversely, of experience in traditional play-based preschools and kindergartens?” Let’s read a book instead!

“The purpose of school should be to educate children at their own pace on what they like to do. Homeschooling offers the parents the opportunity to be doing what they should be doing. We’ve been turning over the responsibility of educating children to the state. I’d like to return that responsibility to the parent.” –Ron […]