Category: Education

How we read now

Posted on by Suki

My family is filled with big readers. Back when we were childless, my husband and I actually had a category in our Quicken account called “books.” The first time he quit his job to start a company and we were trimming expenses, that was one we targeted. Then we became huge consumers of the public library.

Once we had kids, our public library use and book purchasing went up again. Then we discovered audiobooks, and in the last few years have exhausted much of the library’s offerings on disk. Then came the smartphone revolution, and we started to have digital books, as well—both e-books and audiobooks.

Our various ways of accessing books have changed over the years, but here’s a list of how we’re reading now:

Buying books

We are part of the diminishing breed of people who not only believe that it’s important to keep print books in our lives, but we also support our local, independent bookstore. That’s not to say that we don’t succumb to the lure and ease of Amazon on occasion, but we think our local bookshop’s One Book Pledge is very reasonable. (Buy one book a month in your community rather than online.) It’s so important to have choice and variety, and local bookstores offer this. When we walk into our store, the books they display are tailored to the tastes of people in our community, and everyone who benefits from our purchase lives and works in our community.

Digital books

Smartphones have made a huge difference to my reading life. I have a crazy schedule, working in bits and pieces while I take my kids to classes or meet with friends for activities. (I’m typing this while my kids have their back-to-back piano lessons! Thank goodness for piano teachers with wi-fi.) Having both the Kindle and the Nook apps on my phone, as well as Google’s app Play Books, an Adobe Acrobat reader, and a Microsoft Office emulator, allows me to read books and documents anywhere. The Kindle, Nook and Google Play apps all sync automatically, and I can access documents in my Dropbox without even having to attach my phone to my computer.

This translates to a huge amount of new time freed up for reading. In the past, I had to remember to bring things with me, and usually didn’t. Now it’s all there. Reading novels in 5-minute pieces isn’t optimal, but it means that I am once more reading them rather than always forgetting them in their last-known location amidst the piles of books in my house. This is especially helpful with books that I’m reading for a professional purpose. For example, I just started a literature circle for teens, and I’ll be getting all the books we’re reading on my phone so that I have a chance of keeping up with the teens’ reading speed.

I haven’t had a lot of luck accessing free digital books. Of course, scanned copies of out-of-copyright books are freely available, but they are often translated with character recognition software and are sometimes close to unreadable. I’ve had better luck with getting ePub versions and reading them on my phone. However, I’m usually more willing to buy a cheap Nook version of an out-of-copyright book that’s been edited and prettied up. Our library has some e-books but the selection isn’t great, so this isn’t a great option for us yet.

One place that the library does offer a great e-book selection is in things like technical books and software manuals. This makes a lot of sense—why purchase the manual to software that will be out-of-date within a year? Now they just subscribe to a service that offers access to manuals and technical books, which makes a lot more sense.

Another e-book option worth mentioning is for emerging readers: Tumblebooks. This wonderful service has electronic books that have a recorded audio. As the audio progresses through the book, each word spoken lights up in red so that the child can “read” along with the book. It’s also good for second language learning—they have a good selection of Spanish and a smattering of other languages. (If you’re in Santa Cruz, click on “Internet Resources” then “Tumblebooks Library”—you have to sign in with your card number to get access.)

Audiobooks

We have come to love audiobooks. We have two major reasons for audiobooks: The first is that if we listen to them in the car, there is peace for long (and short) drives. My kids love listening and it stops them from trying to annoy each other! The other reason we listen to them is that sometimes it’s great to hear the “right voice” reading out loud. We listened to the entire Harry Potter series, and it wouldn’t have been the same with my Midwestern rendering.

Our first stop for audiobooks is the library, which has many on disk. The problems we’ve found with this are:

  • We often don’t finish a long book before it’s due back and someone else wants it (solution: rip it to a computer, play it back at our leisure, delete when done)
  • Our library inexplicably often doesn’t have the first book in a series
  • Our library has more and more “Playaways,” these horrible little listening devices that are so low-powered that we have to turn our car stereo up to 40 to get it to play at a reasonable volume, with an unreasonable amount of hiss

We eventually caved in and got a subscription to Audible. After the teaser rate runs out, you pay about $15/month to buy one “credit”. Many of the books we were interested in cost not much more than a credit. Then we exhausted most of the newer books we wanted, and I realized that it didn’t make sense to buy older children’s books with credits, because they almost all cost under $15. Finally, I realized we weren’t getting our money’s worth and went to cancel. I knew from reading on the Internet that I could either choose to “pause” my account for three months a year (resulting in a 25% discount), or cancel my account, leaving full access to already-purchased books. I finally decided to cancel, wishing that they had a third, very cheap option where you could pay a small yearly fee to keep the account active and just pay for the books you wanted to buy. After going through many screens that tried to convince me not to cancel, I finally arrived at a screen that asked me, “If we offered you the chance to keep your account live for $9.99/year, would you do it?” Of course! So now I am paying $10/year and can still access their free deals, credit sales, and books that I want to pay for.

This all happened while I knew that our library offered free access to oodles of great audiobooks—but I’d never gotten the software to work on my Mac or my Android phone. Just this week, having told that fact to someone, I thought, Hm, when did I check that last? And lo and behold, they have finally fixed Overdrive so that I can use it. I’m very excited: a great Android app, a new app for my Mac that actually works, and access to tons of free audiobooks. (Free except for the taxes that I happily vote for every time I can to support our wonderful local libraries, truly a great use of our tax money.)

Radio programs and podcasts

I know families that are avid consumers of podcasts, and in fact my husband is one. But my use of them with the kids has been spotty. I’ve always been annoyed at having to sync my phone with my computer, and remembering to download the podcasts, and having to renew my downloads because I’d forget to listen for so long they’d get canceled. But in theory (and in practice for families that get into the swing of them) podcasts can be great. We like Science Friday, Boomerang, and a few others but aren’t currently listening to anything except on occasion.

I have, however, found app might might change that—NPR Player allows you to download content directly onto your phone, bypassing the computer. All of a sudden, I’m starting to listen to podcasts again. So this might be a new addition to our reading/listening lives.

 

It’s amazing how many choices we have these days. My mother had the attitude that it was good for kids to be bored sometimes. When my kids say they’re bored, however, I just answer, “You have GOT to be kidding.” With this much to read? Who could ever run out of things to do?

Books featuring homeschoolers

Posted on by Suki

Like other kids, homeschoolers can be inspired by seeing themselves in fiction. The problem is that many of the depictions of homeschoolers in mainstream fiction depend on misinformation and depict homeschoolers as two-dimensional. The books on this list all show more well-rounded depictions of homeschool life.

Some of them are older books from before the time when homeschoolers were considered unusual. Many are more recent, positive depictions of kids living modern homeschooling lives. Please leave other suggestions in the comments below. (I haven’t read all of these, so let me know if any don’t belong on this list.)

Hanna
My book, Hanna, Homeschooler, follows seven-year-old Hanna as she moves to a new town and makes new friends.

Young Readers (picture and chapter books):

Books about homeschoolers
“Please excuse my child from school. I’m a vampire, and she might be one, too.”

Middle Grade (8-13 years):

  • Almond, David: Skellig
  • Atkinson, Elizabeth: I, Emma Freke
  • Baranoski, Sheila: Cellular Spirits
    Eric Achak is a twelve-year-old unschooler who can see ghosts. He thinks he’s the only one who has this problem until he meets Mr. Francis, who not only can see them but has developed a ghost-catching app that sucks ghosts into cell phones.
  • Barnhill, Kelly: The Girl Who Drank the Moon
  • Bodett, Tom: Williwaw!
  • Burnett, Frances Hodgson: The Secret Garden
    Not really a book about homeschooling, but children in Victorian Britain didn’t always go to school, and it never seemed to be such a huge issue, as long as they were learning and thriving.
  • Cook, Kacy: Nuts
  • Cottrell-Bentley, Lisa: Wright on Time series (click here for all books published by Lisa’s company, Do Life Right, which focuses on books about homeschoolers)
  • Forester, Victoria: The Girl who could Fly
  • Frank, Lucy: The Homeschool Liberation League
  • French, S. Terrell: Operation Redwood
    The homeschool family in this book is just a tad stereotypical (back to the land hippies), but they are lovely characters and as role models, impeccable.
  • Hannigan, Katherine: Ida B… and her plans to maximize fun, avoid disaster, and (possibly) save the world
  • Hatke, Ben: Mighty Jack
  • Hawes, Louise: Big Rig
    This is the very best depiction of roadschooling I’ve ever read in a kids’ book, hands down. On the homeschooling front, I absolutely can’t fault this book—4 stars, 2 thumbs up. However, I only recommend this book with reservations. I have serious concerns about letting kids think that a teen girl hitchhiking alone at a truck stop would end up OK. And a book about trucking that doesn’t point out its contribution to the climate crisis at this point seems really dated. So… lots of great conversation for homeschoolers here! But I wouldn’t recommend it as solo reading lest your kid think that girls who frequent truck stops and try to sweet talk truckers are not making a (dangerous, illegal) business of it.
  • Key, Watt: Alabama Moon
  • Kilbride, Susan: Our America series
  • Kleinman, Liza: Azalea, Unschooled
  • Korman, Gordon: Schooled
  • LaFevers, R.L.: Theodosia and the Serpents of Chaos
  • Law, Ingrid: Savvy
  • Leali, Michael: The Civil War of Amos Abernathy
    Two boys—one homeschooled the other in school, one in a conservative church and one in a liberal church—are gay. When they meet up in a historical reenactment park, their friendship helps them learn more about history and about themselves.
  • Mass, Wendy: Every Soul a Star
  • Morpurgo, Michael: Kensuke’s Kingdom
  • Palacio, R.J.: Wonder
    I love this book but recommend it with reservations: Homeschooling has clearly not harmed the main character, who is smart, well-educated, and socialized (as well as a boy with a scarily deformed face can be socialized). But the references to homeschooling are somewhat negative in that they imply that because his mother is “not good at fractions,” she can’t homeschool him anymore. Heck, you don’t have to be good at fractions to homeschool kids anymore, especially if you have enough money to send them to private school! I say read it with your kids and ask them whether they think homeschooling was depicted fairly.
  • Patterson, James: Treasure Hunters
  • Peterson, Stephanie Wilson: Nellie Nova Takes Flight
  • Riordan, Rick: The Kane Chronicles (starts with The Red Pyramid)
  • Selden, George: The Genie of Sutton Place
  • Selznick, Brian: Wonderstruck
  • Stead, Rebecca: Liar & Spy
  • Tolan, Stephanie: Surviving the Applewhites and Applewhites at Wit’s End
  • Wheeler, Patti: Travels of Gannon and Wyatt
Like many gentlemen of his era, young Victor Frankenstein was homeschooled.

Young Adult (13+):

  • Carter, Ally: I’d Tell You I Love You, But Then I’d Have to Kill You
  • Hubbard, Susan: The Society of S
    I enjoyed this book, which is quite well-written. The main character is the daughter of a vampire and a human who is kept in 19th-century style seclusion due to her “condition”—she may be a vampire like her father. Her father is distant but loving and she gets a fine classical homeschool education. Although the theme of this book is lovely—finding family and love—it does contain some grisly murders and wouldn’t be appropriate for younger kids.
  • Johnson, J.J.: This Girl Is Different
  • Lee, Harper: To Kill a Mockingbird
    I reread this recently and I was surprised to see that Atticus and his brother “never went to school.” Atticus is a lawyer, his brother is a doctor. When Scout first goes to school, the teacher tells her that “your daddy taught you wrong” because she could already read. Scout is mighty confused at this, as she could read for as long as she could remember. Not a book about homeschooling, but the message about the damage that school and bad teachers can do is loud and clear.
  • Mull, Brandon: Beyonders: A World Without Heroes
  • Oppel, Kenneth: This Dark Endeavor and sequels
    I have only read the first of this series. It portrays young Victor’s education as rather more lacking than the original Frankenstein (see Shelley below). It’s not anti-homeschooling, but it does point out the problem that can arise when a parent simply isn’t interested in an entire field of study and doesn’t guide his son’s studies in that area.
  • Rudnick, Paul: It’s All Your Fault
  • Shelley, Mary: Frankenstein
    Similar to The Secret Garden, this book hearkens back to a time and place when schooling was not the only way to learn. Young Victor Frankenstein and his cohorts do OK, though Victor does have a bit of a problem with the question of whether it’s moral to create a new life and then abandon it. Apparently, Daddy forgot to teach that high school class on ethics.
  • Sloan, Holly Goldberg: I’ll Be There
  • Spinelli, Jerry: Stargirl

Book list for pre-teen gifted readers

Posted on by Suki

Pre-teen gifted readers often run into a problem around the age of ten: as younger children they read everything in children’s literature that they could get their hands on. By the time they reach ten years old, they’re starting to run into roadblocks when looking for appropriate books. Some ten-year-olds are ready to go on to Young Adult fiction, but most aren’t. Young Adult, with its focus on teens’ changing bodies and questioning of their place in the world, is often inappropriate and sometimes very upsetting for “tweens” who have outgrown children’s books but are looking for meaty reading to satisfy their literary cravings.

The list below contains books recommended for this demographic. In general, recommended books will not contain violence described in a visceral way, though books that very sensitive readers might want to avoid are starred. If you have recommendations for this list, please leave them in the comments below.

Photo by Annie Spratt on Unsplash

See also:

Resources:

Reading list for your gifted young reader

Posted on by Suki

There is a lot of understanding these days about finding appropriate books for emerging readers. An entire new genre has even sprung up for struggling older readers who want something more mature than Amelia Bedelia. But there’s a problem on the other side of the spectrum for kids who read early. It’s not uncommon for an early reader to reach five years old and hit a wall: a lack of books at a higher reading level that are still appropriate for a five-year-old. Even though these children may be able to read Harry Potter, they may not be ready for the Young Adult intensity of the later books in the series.

The following books have been vetted by moms with children in this age group who are voracious readers. Asterisks denote books that may have difficult content for very sensitive readers. If you have additions, please leave them in the comments below. But make sure that the additions follow these rules:

  • No direct violence
  • If deaths of parents, pets, siblings or others are mentioned, please add a note
  • Complex enough reading for a five-year-old reading at a higher level

List:

See also:

Photo by Annie Spratt on Unsplash

Resources:

Hear me “on the radio”

Posted on by Suki

My daughter was very impressed to hear that I was going to “be on the radio” today. She asked, “Which station?”

In this modern world, she is straddling two eras of technology, perhaps three. Sometimes we listen to local radio stations over the real radio airwaves. Sometimes we listen to local radio stations which we are far away from, whose signal is transmitted through the Internet to our Rokio box. In the car we sometimes listen to satellite radio, which fizzes out every time we drive under trees. Also in our car we listen to podcasts, sometimes shows that were once on the real radio airwaves, but are now being transmitted by a cellphone tower into my phone and then broadcast through Bluetooth into our car’s stereo system.

Phew. In the past, it was simple. I’m guessing in the future, it will be simple. When my kids tell their kids what it was like to listen to the radio in their day, their kids will shake their heads and say, “Really? You didn’t just turn on the osmophone in your head?”

Or something like that.

So back to the “radio” show that I was on. I was honored to be interviewed tonight on the show Bright, Not Broken, to be found on the Coffee Klatsch, a modern radio station that functions solely online. It was broadcast live and then saved as a podcast, available to listeners around the world. All my sage wisdom, captured in bits.

I love the name of the show: Bright, Not Broken. Sometimes kids are different, and we treat them as if they’re a broken toy needing to be fixed. The great thing about homeschooling is that parents of these kids are finding that they can educate their kids without focusing on their disabilities—they focus on their abilities. In a culture where we have therapies and pills and any number of ways to remediate, some parents and educators are stepping back and saying, “I want to focus on what’s right with this kid.”

Check out my interview. Then listen to Temple Grandin, who said that these days, instead of coming up to her and saying “I like animals, too,” kids come up to her and say “I’m autistic, too.” That’s a tragedy, Grandin says: “We should be talking about what they’re good at.”

It’s so great that our modern “radio” system allows us to find others who share our experiences. Tune in and join the conversation!

Listen to internet radio with The Coffee Klatch on Blog Talk Radio

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