ASK HSF! ARCHIVES

Dear Homeschool Frederick,

Are there group reading lessons for young homeschooled children? My six year old child would be more motivated to learn to read working with a small group of kids of kids? It would be great to find a reading and writing club!

-Homeschooling Mom

Dear Homeschooling Mom,

I am not aware of any personally, so I posted your question on various local message boards. I did not get any responses, and don't see any offered by the list of tutors on this site.

However, I would imagine that there are some small reading groups or lessons offered by various homeschool co-ops. I would recommend that you call around to the co-ops you might be interested in joining (see HSF's co-op page) and see if they have offer any reading classes. If you currently belong to a co-op that does not offer any, this might be a good thing for you to help start.

Alternately, you could start your own small group by posting on some of the local message boards to see if you can find other parents interested in a similar offering. That is the beauty of homeschooling– if something we want is not offered, want can initiate it ourselves!

While Frederick County Libraries don't offer systemic reading lessons, they do offer many age appropriate story times. These might be a good place for your son to see other children his age interested in reading, which may motivate him to join in. They also offer bookclubs for kids which you might check out. The libraries also offer the Wags for Hope program where young children can read to dogs:

"Improve your reading skills and make a new friend by reading aloud to a therapy dog! The Reading Education Assistance Dogs (R.E.A.D.) program improves children's reading and communication skills by employing a powerful method: reading to a dog. But not just any dog. R.E.A.D. dogs are registered therapy animals who volunteer with their owner/handlers as a team, going to schools, libraries and many other settings as reading companions for children. Allergy Alert! The dogs are live animals."

Finally, If lessons are boring for him at this age, you might also try some free online reading games/sites to add some fun to the mix:

http://www.starfall.com/ - "Our systematic phonics approach, in conjunction with phonemic awareness practice is perfect for preschool, kindergarten, first grade, second grade, special education, homeschool, and English language development (ELD, ELL, ESL). Starfall is an educational alternative to other entertainment choices for children."

http://www.learntoreadfree.com/ - free online lessons from Montessori Home

Best of luck and if readers have any other ideas, please let us know so we can pass them on to this reader.

Sincerely,

Beth Redmond
Editor, Homeschool Frederick!