The Book that Got Me Thinking

We have used Sonlight curriculum from the beginning of our home school journey and I love their program. My kids have always been surrounded by GREAT literature, but they weren't loving learning like I had hoped. Don't get me wrong they enjoyed most of what they read and were learning a tremendous amount, but there were LOTS of things they weren't. They weren't excited about learning. They weren't exploring their passions. They weren't even excited about what they were reading. So, I started looking for new ways to help my girls get excited about what they were learning. That is when I stumbled upon the book The Book Whisperer. 

This is a story of a teacher and her approach to teaching a love of reading to children by - gasp- allowing kids to choose what they read. As a certified teacher who is use to all students reading the same novel, this was an enlightening concept.

When I brought this idea to my kids they LOVED the simple thought of choosing what they read. I followed the model outlined within the book, which has students choosing a certain number of books from different genres, and gave my kids their own page to log the books and genres. It was a great year of reading for my girls and opened up my mind to an entirely new methodology for student learning. 

I began to ask myself questions throughout this past year. If my kids are reading and learning by choosing their own books, why couldn't they learn other subjects this way? How could I approach the idea of learning differently? What kind of proof would there be if this new way of learning was actually working. 

As I witnessed my oldest daughter Olivia express a love of writing, I slowly allowed her to spend more time writing. Not just writing, but writing what she wanted. I went out and looked for books she may enjoy to help guide her. If she liked the book she would use it, if she didn't it was fine to let it go and move on to something else. The more I let go of being in charge of teaching, and simply began facilitating and cheering her on, Olivia truly began to grow as a writer. 

After witnessing Olivia's success with self-directed learning, I decided to take the plunge and test it out with all of my kids. I have been nervous, terrified, worried, and amazed with as my family has transformed our school at home to an environment where passions take flight and learning does not feel like school, or anything that is dreaded...well maybe math isn't a passion, but it is the one topic my husband and I are not comfortable being self-directed. Maybe we will get there some day, but for now we are learning O.N.E.'s way a step at a time.