(3rd time’s a charm for this mom)

There is always the danger that a method, a bona fide method, should degenerate into a mere system…
-Charlotte Mason

Many things season well with age, and motherhood is no exception. I had taught two of my children to read before realizing anything was amiss with the way I went about it. It wasn’t until my third child sought to learn to read, that I began seeking a better way of teaching how. Just over a decade into motherhood, experience has taught me much about what NOT to do. Having become a mom at the age of 22, I was inclined to take on a systematic approach when the time came to teach my first child to read. I hadn’t the experience, much less the confidence, to trust myself with anything else at the time. Charlotte Mason explains that

A ‘system of education’ is an alluring fancy; … because it is pledged to more definite calculable results. By means of a system certain developments may be brought about through the observance of given rules.

It is no wonder why I latched on to a system. I wanted that “alluring fancy” to ensure that my own inexperience and self-doubt wouldn’t hinder my child.

Our reading lessons before:

Looking back, reading lessons with my oldest 2 children could have gone more smoothly had I not approached it as a system. We would sit down, open our reader, and trudge through the lessons, while I inwardly hoped that they weren’t in a disagreeable mood so the lesson wouldn’t unravel. The destination I was aiming for was that they become literate, and the road wasn’t paved with good intentions, so they say.

Being in systematic autopilot mode, I had firm determination that we accomplish as much in that session as possible — in my mind, that meant success. This often led to the frustrations I hoped against, and when met with the inevitable mental road blocks that came up, and the meltdowns that sometimes happened mid-lesson, I could no longer see our path to the desired outcome. I would keep trying to troubleshoot in the moment, but felt lost. Systems don’t usually account for these diversions; Diversions are, after all, quite contrary to the “observance of given rules”. A system which sounds foolproof in theory can become problematic in practice. I had no guide for those roadblocks, and my forcing the status quo to continue regardless of the wrenches that got thrown into the works did not feel like success, even when they were progressing in their ability.

System, method…As long as they end up literate, does it really matter?

Our goal in teaching reading is, of course, literacy. But could it be more? Both my children who endured my learn-to-read system read very well now at 10 and 7 years old. I can attest though, that their impression of “school” did not begin with a glowing perspective. Later, when I began learning of the sound philosophy of Charlotte Mason, we began softening those hardened attitudes towards learning and lessons and loving it as a part of life. Charlotte Mason states that

…method is natural; easy, yielding, unobtrusive, simple as ways of Nature herself; yet, watchful, careful, all pervading, all compelling.

That’s where my system failed. A child’s reading lessons need that “easy, yielding, unobtrusive” method, which allows for the proper balance of challenge with encouragement and mental rest.

A system might only have as its end that which is measurable — such as the possession of rote reading skills — but then what is dismissed of the other aspects of learning which aren’t quite as measurable? What might they miss out on learning of life while they are learning to read? It might seem silly to think so heavily on what is, after all, “mere child’s play”; — just simple phonics lessons. Yet, consider: These are typically the first formal lessons embarked upon by home-educators. How will they set the course for the child’s journey of learning in general? Is each lesson a compartmentalized chore seen as a momentary interruption to the joys of life, or is it interwoven and enjoyed as a part of life itself?

Instead of making connections in teaching my children reading, bonding over special moments, snuggling and smiling together over new learning, I was stressing over achieving the calculable result which I though defined success, while they perceived lessons as something to endure while habitually hoping to “get it over with, already”. A system is no respecter of persons. A method takes into account the person for whom the end goal is set.

There is a better way!

Around the time my 4-year-old began to express that she really wanted to learn to read, I had been relatively new in my own implementation of the new principles about which I was learning. I came across Teaching Reading with Bob Books (TRwBB) and saw in it the guide I needed to teach reading as a method. For those who, like me, might be recovering from the inclination to systematize any curriculum they touch, the wholeness of this “method”; philosophy is built-in. A welcome companion for both the timid, inexperienced mom, and the confident, seasoned mom alike, TRwBB is simple and unintimidating, yet “all pervading, all compelling.” It serves as a guide through potential roadblocks, breaking down the end goal of literacy into smaller goals within each lesson. Due to her Charlotte Mason approach to learning in general, Brandy’s lessons incline me to be a more “yielding and unobtrusive” teacher, making the journey more natural. The “broad essential principles” of which Charlotte Mason says

… once fully laid hold of, it is as easy and natural to act upon them as it is to act upon our knowledge of such facts as that fire burns and water flows…

are so obviously at the foundation of TRwBB. For me, the third time has, indeed, proven to be a charm as we traded a system for a learning-to-read method.

Some thoughts about the TRwBB process:

The binder we created with TRwBB is a great tool that can be used however strictly or loosely we would like. As for review, I can decide based on my child, reviewing only a few cards each day or several, adjusting as her abilities grow. I love the long-term goal of 100 books which is set right at the start. The momentum it creates as they finish each little book so soon after beginning is exciting motivation for a little learner.

[T]he following of a method implies an idea, a mental image, of the end of object to be arrived at. (Charlotte Mason.)

By focusing on smaller, clear goals, we can add a love of learning and pleasant memories to the broad goal of literacy. With these goals, and the object of the lesson clearly in view, and I can take each day’s endeavors less systematically and more naturally. Each lesson is just challenging enough to be satisfyingly encouraging to the new reader, without the risk of overwhelm or burnout. The mental preparation the lesson offers removes the decision fatigue, so I can focus on what matters during the lesson. I’m not thrown for a loop if something unexpected comes up, and I can reserve my “decision muscles”; to confidently readjust that day’s goals if a need were to arise.

Early on, it felt strange to take on a tiny little Bob Book in such bite-sized pieces, but I came to see the wisdom in this. I do it every day for my 8 month old when I prepare his food in tiny, soft bits. Stopping before (rather than when) the child grows weary is definitely the more natural, (”… watchful, careful …”) approach. I found that my child’s attention and endurance in the lessons have naturally grown, and it has proven to be a much less-stressful task to start slow and speed up in proportion to the child’s growth, rather than to start fast and expect them to keep up the pace as they stumble along.

Our reading lessons now:

My daughter gets her binder and Bob Book, we sit on the couch, she eagerly reviews that day’s sections, and she reads. By the end of Set 1, we have had zero tears, and I can’t recall a single frustrated moment. No more system. Now we have a method that fits our family. I believe any beginning reader and their parent would thrive with the method that the Teaching Reading with Bob Books curriculum offers. No tears, and no frustration. Only enjoyable, fun times with her reading binder and Bob Books, learning to read as Mom better learns to guide.

Teaching Reading with Bob Books was one of the best accidental finds of mine.

A little bit of background: My husband and I had 2 sons, ages 6 and 1, when we began homeschooling. Our eldest just finished kindergarten at a local classical Christian school we were blessed with a generous scholarship to attend. Toward the end of the school year, however, it weighed more and more on our hearts that homeschooling was what was needed for our little family.

When it came to teaching him how to read once we started first grade at home, I had never really given it much thought. I mean, they did that already in kindergarten, didn’t they? He was, after all, reading.

Don’t get me wrong, he wasn’t by any means a fluent reader, but he was reading. At the time, we were using a popular catholic work-book based curriculum, and I just bought whatever workbooks their checklist had for reading and phonics, gave my son his instructions, and he did it, and that was it. And I made him read everything, and he did it. Today, he is a very strong reader, and even likes to do creative writing on his free time. Overall a very hands-off experience for me, and in retrospect I honestly have no idea how it worked.

Flash forward a few years, and we are now waist-deep into the Charlotte Mason method with our now 4th-grader (we’ll call him DS1). All that we were doing was totally new, but so good and very needed. My son was now enjoying school, where before he thought it boring and dull. I was still learning (I still am) how to spread this feast, but we were happy with where we were at.

By now our 1 year old was 4 (DS2), and we also had a 3 year old (DS3) and a 1 year old (DS4). To say that I was overwhelmed is an understatement. I am not a naturally organized, lesson plan-following, type-A homeschool mom, and I had a house full of rambunctious and curious boys that I was somehow supposed to train and educate. Umm….. what?

So imagine my not-so-pleasant surprise when DS2 started asking for reading lessons, at the age of 4. I didn’t really have any plan to start formal lessons of any sort with him until he was 6, so this threw me for a loop. How can I say no to his desire? He was no longer satisfied with opening up his favorite picture books and narrating his own stories. He wanted to be able to read the words on the page.

I browsed my Charlotte Mason Facebook groups and YouTube, and decided that we would get the book Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons and read our Bob Books Set 1 that I found at a local used bookstore for fun. Well, 6 lessons in and my son was hitting a brick wall with 100 Easy Lessons. The method was just not clicking with him. He did, however, LOVE our Bob Books, and was even reading the first few books independently on his own at that point, just from reading them with me over and over the span of a couple of weeks.

I decided to drop 100 Easy Lessons, and we just continued to read our Bob Books together. Now these weren’t really lessons at all, and eventually he only wanted to read the books that he already knew how to read and did not want to go forward, and I did now know how to teach him the new letter sounds and words we were coming across. So, like most modern moms, I hit up my Facebook groups for a solution. Someone (a saint, really) shared TRwBB with me and directed me here to Brandy’s blog. Intrigued, I looked through her entire site, watched some of her videos on YouTube, and I was hooked. I knew this was the solution! Formal lessons for my type-A child that were simple for me to implement, using books my child already loves? I was sold.

I probably could have kissed Brandy if I bumped into her at Target. Just kidding. Maybe not.

How We Used Teaching Reading with Bob Books Then

I purchased our binder supplies and put everything together. I decided to use the lesson plans provided in the blog so that I had more freedom to make changes if I chose to in the future, and started filling out our lesson cards. For several books, our lessons looked just like they are laid out in the blog, and everything was going so well. I started to rely less and less on the blog for all of our lesson cards (lesson plan rebel, remember?), and was only referring to it when I needed help with a particular sound, although I continued to follow to general rhythm of Brandy’s lesson plans. We made it through 3 sets of Bob Books using TRwBB before DS2 was ready to move on to something else. At the age of 4 ½, he now had a remarkably strong phonics foundation, and was reading, writing, and happily sounding out words on his own, thanks to this wonderful curriculum. So with a little sadness I put away our binder until DS3 was ready.

How We Use Teaching Reading with Bob Books Now

DS3 is a totally different child and has a totally different personality than DS2. As to where DS2 is all about school and sitting down for formal lessons happily and attentively as if you were serving his favorite dessert, DS3 is still very much in play-all-the-time mode. I thought for sure I wouldn’t start anything formal with him until age 6. But that familiar big-brother envy came creeping up on us again. DS3, at age 4, now wanted to do reading lessons just like his big brother. He remembered me pulling out our binder and hearing DS2 recite his sounds and having so much fun reading his Bob Books, and he wanted so badly to do the same.

Knowing his personality, I knew this would be a challenge. I only knew TRwBB the way it was laid out in the blog, but I knew that would be a bit too formal for my little guy. So I pulled out our binder and put aside all of the cards I had made previously for DS2, and re-wrote much simpler cards with only 1 letter sound on it. For example, for book 1 in set 1, instead of having one card that read M, A, T, S, I had 4 separate cards. I figured this would help us to take his lessons extra slow.

I also started learning more about Charlotte Mason’s approach to teaching reading, and am now implementing word building and sight word lessons along with our phonics lessons. Other tools I use in addition to our Bob Books and binder system are a movable alphabet, as well as sight word cut-outs and simple letter sound copy work pages I created myself. TRwBB is now more of a “spine” to our reading lesson feast. This works for DS3 very well, since he doesn’t like doing the same thing over and over, and helps us to move more slowly through our lessons. I usually only cover a page in a book at a time.

What a typical lesson looks like for us now:

1. Review letter sounds in our binder.
2. Pull open our Bob Book to the page we are focusing on.
3. Take out our movable alphabet and sight word cut outs.
4. Have DS3 copy our chosen sight words with his moveable letters.
5. Ask him to “take a picture” of the word he just built and tell me again what it says.
6. Mix up his letters, take away the word cut-out, and ask him to “look” at the picture in his head and rebuild the word from memory.
7. Dictate the words on the page we are working through, and have him build the sentence or phrase with his word cut-outs as I dictate.
8. Have him attempt to read that page, helping where needed.

That’s it! He also likes to do some pencil work so I have him do a simple copy work sheet of a letter sound we are working on, and he likes to draw on the back when he is done. It may sound like a lot, but it goes by pretty quickly, usually no more than 15 minutes, and he thoroughly enjoys it. Some days, we break it up if he wants, and we don’t always get to everything every day. We also usually spend about 2-3 days going through the same page in our Bob Book, depending on what he needs. I really love how our lessons look right now, and I can already see the fruit of it.

A question I get asked from time to time is, why not use more beautiful literature from the beginning with your child for reading lessons? Most Charlotte Mason inspired educators use Free and Treadwell or similar readers, and other classic stories and poems to teach reading. I use Bob Books for beginning phonics because of its simplicity. I love the slow phonetic progression of the books, and the simple presentation allows my child the ability to actually read the books on their own fairly quickly, building confidence.

I have not had a problem transitioning DS2 out of Bob Books. We are now using McGuffey readers as well as the Free and Treadwell readers. In fact, his phonics foundation is so strong that he has been doing very well, with little to no trouble at being able to sound out and identify more difficult words. My only regret was not having sight word lessons with him in the manner we are doing now from the very beginning.

I am thrilled to have found the Teaching Reading with Bob Books blog and lesson plans! It has truly been instrumental in teaching my children to read, and we will continue to use it later with DS4 and DS5 on the way!

If you would like to get a visual idea of how I use this curriculum, you can check out my YouTube video discussing it here:

I do hope our approach to using TRwBB helps you on your own reading journey!

xoxo,
Victoria Ybarra

My nearly 5 year old daughter has begun her Bob Book lessons and thoroughly enjoys them. She catches on quickly and remembers well, as long as we review properly. I however am a little overwhelmed by her ‘taking over’ of the Bob Binder. She is thrilled that we are making cards and has filled the pockets with her own (very convincing) cards full of neat little letters, words and lists. During the lessons she fills in the story how she feels it ought to be, adding words to make the sentences more complicated and descriptions to make the story match the pictures better. Does all of this mean that she is too young? That I need to move through the books more quickly? That her habit of attention requires some work? I am nervous to teach reading, and I don’t want to squash her into the neat little lessons I envision.

I can’t tell you how delightful I found this! It reminded me of a little girl I used to teach — she was five and probably very gifted; I homeschooled her for her parents. She had a fantastic imagination. One day, we went out to do nature study and she did her first nature drawing. She did a wonderful job until the end when, with a flourish, she drew purple crowns on all of the plants. Ha! The imagination can carry us away, especially when we are five.

I think this sort of situation is a good one for us to stretch our homeschool trouble-shooting muscles in general, so I’ll tell you what I would do, but I will also try and share a bit of a framework for thinking through these things.

Begin with the end in mind.

This is the starting place for tackling a problem in education, I think. What are we really trying to do? What is the destination we want to arrive at? What is required in order to get there?

In situations like these, I find there are competing tensions. On the one hand, an educated child is most certainly a literate child (and a child who is making her own pretend phonics cards sounds more than ready to me). At the same time, especially at these earlier ages, we want to be so respectful of the child as a person, we don’t want to kill any love for learning or lessons, and we want that creativity and imagination to continue to flourish.

Build a solution that balances the tensions and competing goals.

This is the fun part because this is where we homeschool mamas gets to be creative in our attempts to solve the problem. We need a solution that:

• Maintains the authority of the mother over the lessons (and the child!)
• Keeps the lessons short and interesting
• Doesn’t kill the child’s excitement
• Allows the child to keep up her creativity and imagination

I’m sure there is more than one solution, but my approach would be — and has been in similar situations — to divide these two goals into two separate activities. So, I would build a second binder. This is her play binder. She can make cards and play at lessons as much as she likes in her spare time. Perhaps a teddy bear to which she can “teach” reading would help? Any of the books she finishes can be put into a little box for her to use in her play.

During real lessons, mom is in charge. Mom will make the cards (or print them out, if she’s purchased the printable curriculum), and mom will guide the review pacing and the lessons. If the child has a really hard time with this, I’d use a timer. Start with only 5 minutes and then work up to the full lesson (10-15 minutes) slowly.

Maybe the child can help put the cards in the pockets? I would leave this as a reward. If she can listen and obey Mommy’s guidance during the lessons, if she can follow Mommy’s directions (I’m mainly thinking here about putting the cards in the proper section — where they go on the page isn’t important to the lesson, but which section they are in matters), then she gets to do it.

Present the solution to the child.

I find that it really helps to talk to a child at a less expected time. For example, when I have a run-in with my teenager, he would expect me to come talk to him directly following what happened. But I don’t do that. I’ve learned that there is still too much emotion there. But if I wait until hours or even days later, then we can have a good talk about what happened.

The same goes with small children, especially when lessons gotten tense. At our house, I make “announcements” during breakfast. This functions like a meeting and it works really well in managing a child’s expectations.

So, in the case, I would think of a good time to “meet” with the child. Since she is five, this needs to be really short and to the point. I’m thinking:

• This is what lessons have been like lately.
• This is what they are going to be like from here on out.
• Here is your new binder so that you can still do what you have been doing.

Only you know if this particular solution will work for your child, which is why I shared the process. This will allow you to think of an implement a different, more fitting, solution if you need to.

A final thought.

With different children, I’ve had to have different rules in regard to the binder. One of them was very careful, and she wanted to play with it on her own time. That worked fine because she was never moving cards. But I had another child who couldn’t keep his hands off of things and was very careless, so lots of times the way I knew he had been messing with his binder was because it was upside on the floor and half the cards had fallen out. As you can imagine, the first child was allowed to “play binder” and the latter wasn’t — because after a trial period, he proved that he would not (or could not) be careful. A year later, he asked for another chance, and so we tried again. That time, he was successful.

I have a couple thoughts about this. The first is that children can be given the chance to prove they are responsible enough to have a freedom they desire. The second is that they understand when they didn’t meet the criteria you set out; don’t change it.

It’s getting close to that time of year again, folks! I’m writing this now because books are things you need to buy a bit in advance — you won’t have them when you need them if you haven’t already collected them! It doesn’t take magic to raise readers. Children who grow up to be readers have parents who read, have books read aloud to them, and have access to good books at home. I’m sure there are other things, but these are big ones!

When it comes to Christmas books, there are a lot of silly ones. There area lot designed to sell you child the latest holiday movie or toy. There are okay ones that are fine, but you really hate reading them aloud over and over and over ad nauseam. And then there are the wonderful ones, the priceless ones — the ones you are so glad you bought and you brag about to your friends. These are the ones you get extra copies of. You give them to your nieces and nephews. You love them, too.

C.S. Lewis once wrote:

A children’s story that can only be enjoyed by children is not a good children’s story in the slightest.

Conversely, the very best children’s stories are so good, an adult is willing to sit down and read one, even when there are no children around!

So, as I said, there are many Christmas pictures books. A few rise above the rest, and those are what I’m highlighting today.

1. The Year of the Perfect Christmas Tree: An Appalachian Story by Gloria Houston

This book always makes me cry a little. My entire family makes fun of me for this, but at the same time, they beg me to read it aloud again. Houston’s story is set during World War I. We learn about the year the Armistice was signed, when Ruthie’s father had to go to war, and the village almost didn’t have a Christmas tree that year. In the midst of this setting, we see Mother and Ruthie missing Father so much. We see what real sacrifice looks like. And we also come to know joy.

It’s a beautiful tale, well told.

I’m linking hardbacks as much as possible here in this post because, in my opinion, books this well done need to be hardbacks in order to survive many readings over many years.

2. The Wee Christmas Cabin of Carn-na-ween by Ruth Sawyer

This book is out of print and can be difficult to find at a reasonable price. It’s fine to buy a used copy, of course, but make sure you get one in good condition because you’re going to read it a lot. This is a beautiful Christmas fairy tale. This one takes place against the backdrop of the Irish Potato Famine, so again we have a story that is sad and involves self-sacrifice.

An elderly peasant woman has worn herself out in service to others. She has no family and, seemingly, no friends. What will happen to her when she is homeless on Christmas Eve? Is there no reward for those who do good? The story is enchanting and the illustrations by Max Grafe are gorgeous.

3. The Jesse Tree by Geraldine McCaughrean

This isn’t a book you read in a single sitting. It’s an Advent reader and this means a bit of it should be read every day during the 24 days leading up to Christmas. This is a great way to review the basic Gospel story as presented in the Old Testament up to the Incarnation in the New Testament. I have been reading this to my children every year for many years, and they still haven’t outgrown it.

For who could possibly outgrow the Good News of Great Joy?

We made little ornaments to match each story, and we hang them on a makeshift Jesse Tree — one ornament per day, hung after we’ve read the day’s story. It’s a delightful tradition.

4. The Christmas Miracle of Jonathan Toomey by Susan Wojciechowski

Have you ever noticed that many good Christmas tales follow the pattern laid out by Charles Dickens in his A Christmas Carol? You know the one: grumpy man encounters Christmas and repents before it’s too late. This book is like that, too. In this case, the man has some good reasons for being grumpy. Thankfully, Christ is bigger than our pains and anguish, and joy comes in the morning, does it not? Joy arrives in the story eventually, just like in real life.

This book is only a couple decades old, but I believe it will prove to be a true classic. As woodcutter Jonathan Toomey has his heart changed, we find ours warming up to Christmas as well.

5. The Remarkable Christmas of the Cobbler’s Sons by Ruth Sawyer

This one? It is too much fun! Set against the backdrop of a war and ensuing extreme poverty, three little boys are shivering away on Christmas Eve. Their father has gone away to try and earn some money for their dinners. If this book is anything, it is a tale of magic-as-mercy-to-the-poor.

These little boys are able to eat their fill for the holidays, but not before they are toyed with by a remarkable little man, who turns out to be a mischievous goblin king! This one makes us laugh with delight every single year.

When your child finishes Bob Books Set 5, he can’t just jump into chapter books. In fact, the five sets plus the two sight words sets do not teach all the necessary phonics rules. (That’s why we are developing further curriculum that will come after Set 5.)

Be that as it may, our Bob Books graduates can read some books, for sure.

What are some books they can read, almost entirely on their own, with only a little bit of help from you? Here are five wonderful authors that are not to be missed!

#1 Arnold Lobel

Arnold Lobel is best known for his Frog and Toad series of books. They are the absolute sweetest! I treasured reading these with my children, and I’m saving them for when grandchildren come along. They are by far my favorite easy readers ever.

But Arnold Lobel wrote much more than this, and the other books are worth reading as well. Here are some we have in our family library:

• Mouse Tales • Mouse Soup • Grasshopper on the Road • Uncle Elephant •

#2 Else Holmelund Minarik

I know this name is a mouthful, but maybe her Little Bear series is familiar to you? This is another set of sweet easy readers. And you can’t go wrong with Maurice Sendak as the illustrator!

• Little Bear • Little Bear’s Friend • A Kiss for Little Bear • Little Bear’s Visit • Little Bear and the Marco Polo •

#3 Cynthia Rylant

Yes, Cynthia Rylant’s picture books — such as The Relatives Came or When I Was Young in the Mountains — are amazing. But are you familiar with her Henry and Mudge easy readers series? These sweet tales about a boy and his dog are not to be missed! They are all fantastic, but I personally prefer the earlier books, illustrated by Suçie Stevenson, including titles like these:

• Henry and Mudge: The First Book • Henry and Mudge and Annie’s Good Move • Henry and Mudge in the Green Time • Henry and Mudge and the Forever Sea • Henry and Mudge in Puddle Trouble • Henry and Mudge and the Happy Cat •

#4 Russell Hoban

Russell Hoban has written a variety of children’s books — picture books as well as easy readers — and his most famous character is, of course, Frances. Frances will make parents and children giggle! And don’t let her animal appearance fool you: Frances is a child, just like all children.

• Bread and Jam for Frances • Bedtime for Frances • A Bargain for Frances • A Birthday for Frances • A Baby Sister for Frances • Best Friends for Frances •

#5: Peggy Parish

And last, but definitely not least … who can forget America’s clumsiest maid, Amelia Bedelia? Peggy Parish is giving children a laughing road to reading in her genius creation of this character. Here are some of our favorite titles to get you started:

• Amelia Bedelia • Amelia Bedelia Goes Camping • Amelia Bedelia and the Baby • Teach Us, Amelia Bedelia • Play Ball, Amelia Bedelia • Amelia Bedelia Helps Out • Good Work, Amelia Bedelia • Come Back, Amelia Bedelia •

You’ve been there, haven’t you? You sit down with your binder and your Bob Books to do what you think will be a pleasant little lesson, and your student shows up, frown on face. Or, the lesson starts off great, only to have Something Happen midway that completely derails it.

Take a deep breath, my friend, because it happens to the best of us.

In fact, this is a good time to say, “Oh, well” and let it go.

Once you let go of that picture you have in your head of the Perfect Reading Lesson, you have some options. But first, the important guiding principle: we should never get into a habit of grouchy, combative reading lessons.

Never ever.

Do what it takes to keep that from becoming a habit in any kind of lesson, really. Once a child gets in a habit of being a grouch about his lessons (or his dinner or chores or whatever else he’s against), there are no decisions being made — he is just running his little train on the same rails over and over and the habit becomes more and more entrenched. Trust me when I say that it is much easier to prevent a bad habit from being formed than it is to try and break a bad habit and replace it with a good one.

Today, we’re going to assume you’re not breaking a bad habit. You’re just dealing with something that happens occasionally: a bad day or a bad lesson.

Here are some options that might work:

1. Tell jokes.

This is dangerous, because it can backfire. You really have to know whether your child will be able to get over himself in this way or not. Other things that provoke laughter — doing something silly, or a little tickling — may also work. I find that this is best aimed at the child who is only a little bit down. If he just had a huge blow up with his sister, it’s probably not going to work; in fact it might make things worse.

But still: laughter is good medicine for child and mother — have you laughed yet today?

2. Skip the lesson.

Like I said, the priority is to not get a Bad Lesson Habit. Skipping a lesson occasionally is one form of prevention. The thing to keep in mind is that your student is very smart, and he might figure out that if he acts grumpy, he gets to skip school, so be on your guard. Depending on the situation, including the age of your child, skipping the lesson and filling that time with some hard work might be the best thing — a chore he hates might help him decide he prefers to face his lessons with a good attitude.

By the way, I think it’s perfectly fine to be clear. I have told a child more than once that she has a bad attitude, and I don’t teach students with bad attitudes, so she will have to do chores instead. The key to saying something like this is to make sure your tone is still pleasant and loving so that your child doesn’t feel like you are The Enemy.

3. Delay the lesson.

I’ve done this with math more than reading, but let me tell you that it works. If one of my girls comes to me in tears over something, and it happens to be math time, guess what? She is not going to be able to do math because her mind is distracted with her woes. Comfort the child and do the lessons later. There is nothing wrong with rearranging the schedule now and then — the schedule is supposed to be your helper not your slave master.

4. Shorten the lesson.

If you know your child is having a bad day in general, but you think he can handle a bit of a lesson, then the key will be to keep it short. If a page or two is all he can handle reading, it’s okay. You were consistent with your lessons, and tomorrow is a new day. I know I assign page numbers in the lessons, but please don’t feel like you can’t make judgment calls.

5. Freshen the lesson.

I mainly put it this way because it rhymed. Sometimes, we can get the child to get over himself and take interest in the lesson by doing this a bit differently. You might start with a read aloud from a favorite picture book, or spend some time doing word-building exercises using the rules you know. Whatever you choose, the point is to soften the child up a bit to the idea of doing his lessons.

We all have our regrets, right? (If you’re new to homeschooling, just give yourself a day or two. Then, you will have regrets, too.) Preschool is only the beginning of things we give our children to talk about with their therapists when they are grown.

Let me start by telling you the truth: the number one regret I have heard homeschool moms mention is getting too academic too soon with their children.

It’s easy to do. Once you know you’re going to homeschool, you get itching to start. It gets even worse if you’re under pressure from well-meaning family and friends to prove yourself, or you’ve been over-exposed (one exposure is one too many) to those silly books about teaching your baby to read using flashcards. It is often the firstborn, or the first couple of children, who suffer from the mother’s eagerness.

For me, early academics came as a way of killing time. It started when my oldest (who is in high school) was two-years-old, and I was on bedrest. There isn’t much I can change about that part, which I think is why it gets my heart aching every single time. So many of my memories from that time consist of me laying on the couch, trying to keep my pregnancy (and also my lunch), with him so patiently hoping for something to do together.

It wasn’t horrible. He’s naturally a schoolish sort of person, so it could have been worse. But still: if I had known then what I know now, I would have done things differently.

We spent a lot of time on numbers and colors and letters — the “important facts” of early childhood. Admittedly, I was so green with nausea that reading aloud wasn’t possible a lot of the time.

But still.

I never asked the question of what early childhood is for or whether there were better things to do with him, better ways to have him spend his time. The trend I started when he was two continued through all of his preschool and kindergarten years while I continued to get pregnant, have babies, nurse babies, and so on.

Today, I’m going to tell you what I’d do, knowing what I know now, with my preschoolers and kindergartners if I were starting all over again (something like what my younger children actually experienced). Other than giving them plenty of time to play, here are seven aspects of my “core curriculum” for littles.

Important thing to remember: kindergarten is still little. Don’t rush it.

1.  Go outside.

My little guy didn’t really like going outside, and I didn’t have the energy and stamina to fight with him about it. But if I could do it over, I’d figure it out. I’d ask for help from my husband or family or friends. Going outside while on bedrest can be complicated, of course, but I’m sure I could have borrowed some sort of reclining outside chair from a family member to make it possible to be outside and lie on my side at the same time.

Simple things like a bird feeder or hummingbird feeder might have attracted creatures worth knowing about, worth knowing the names of. A little spade and a bucket might have made him quite happy, especially if I had been nearby. Bugs would have been available, as well as the occasional cloud. With a hose, he could have made mud — though cleaning him up might have been a challenge.

If I hadn’t been on bedrest, a whole world would have opened up to us. I could have taken him to the park, where we could have learned the names of all the trees. We could have learned about north and south, the direction the sun moves, where it rises and sets, and a million other things. All of this could have been learned through conversation, just him and me, discussing the world.

Being outside hours and hours a day is so important for children. I hadn’t yet been introduced to Charlotte Mason, but her chapters on outdoor life in Home Education are priceless resources for the early years. They are what helped me transition to more outdoor time.

2. Listen to music.

I like things quiet, especially when I am overwhelmed {which was basically all of my first seven years of motherhood}, meaning we weren’t listening to much of anything. Plus, smart phones with applications that play music were still a number of years away from being invented. Music, you see, wasn’t quite as easy to come by. Still, I think I had some CDs from a music history class I had taken in college, and I even remember that my son liked them. I should have done much more with them. In the early years, we moms always want to start introducing the things that feel important, like writing and math.

But music. This we forget. My older wiser self would tell my younger self to start with the music. Tiny children are not yet ready for the three-r’s, but their souls are in tune with the good, true, and beautiful — they are always ready for music.

A curriculum like AmblesideOnline, with the scheduled rotation of composers is just perfect. At these young ages, not much is necessary other than listening. Maybe just a simple sentence such as, “Let’s listen to our Bach music.”

3. Look at beautiful pictures.

I saw a mom on Facebook whose little one-year-old already has a tiny store of beautiful pictures in her mind. She carries around a tiny copy of a Cassatt painting and shows it to her dolls. Truly, this mom has chosen the better way, I thought to myself. While my toddler was staring at geometric shapes — garishly colored triangles and octagons (“ah-gah-gon” he would say at age 2), hers is seeing actual beauty.

I didn’t know any better, so there is nothing I can do about the past, but I can warn those who come after me. If you have to make a choice, choose paintings. Choose art. Choose beauty.

Again, I refer you to AmblesideOnline. The artist study page has so many choices. You can choose what is scheduled, or you can select something you think is particularly fitting for your child. Picture study with little ones is oh so simple. We don’t make demands upon them, because they are so young. We simply hold out the painting. “What do you see?” “What do you love?”

4. Read aloud, especially nursery rhymes.

Reading aloud in general is great, yes. Read those picture books over and over until they fall apart, yes. But one thing that wasn’t on my radar at the time was nursery rhymes. I should have owned an Original Mother Goose, and I should have read a poem or two every day after we read our Bible story. Not only are nursery rhymes (and other poetry) so nourishing to young minds, but they develop the aesthetic sense — it is an early way of learning about rhyme and rhythm.

5. Don’t start reading lessons until they are ready, and then make them very, very short.

Someday I will explain the full story as to why I developed the Teaching Reading with Bob Books Printable Phonics Lessons. For now, let me say that the most important aspect of my program is that it is designed to naturally limit reading lessons to only 10-15 minutes per day.

My oldest child mostly taught himself to read, it’s true. But sometimes, as he was figuring things out, he would need lessons. And I, naturally, thought that if five minutes was good, thirty was even better. I almost made this sweet, natural reader of mine hate reading!

Reading lessons do not have to be complicated, and they do not need to take a lot of time to be effective. Reading lessons should never take longer than necessary.

When I couldn’t find a program out there that was designed to be this simple — that respected the fact that reading lessons should be a very small part of an otherwise richly lived life, I made one.

But let’s say you’re not using my program. Fine. I still beg you not to go on and on with the reading lessons.

As far as when to start lessons, that is an easy one: the rule of thumb here at TRwBB is to start at age six, or when they start begging, whichever comes first. It is okay to teach reading in kindergarten, or even preschool, if the child is demanding it. But if not, please wait. It is okay to wait and start reading in first grade. The secret is that they usually learn much faster when you wait until they are older.

6. Play math rather than drill math.

If you need a book on this, try Kate Snow’s Preschool Math at Home. Once you get a sense for what she’s doing in the book, you should be able to incorporate simple activities, such as counting, into the day-to-day.

You’re at the grocery store, shopping for apples. Have your preschooler hold the bag and count out the apples as you put them inside. Grocery stores are wonderful places for learning to count, learning a bit about weight, and more.

7. Work hard together.

In the preschool and kindergarten years, chores are oft overlooked. Personally, I think they ought to be part of the core curriculum! Not only do well-trained children make “real” homeschooling (first grade and up) so much easier, but these younger years are when children are excited to learn. It can slow you down, it’s true. But the time invested when children are little pays off later and makes it oh so worth it.

Let them do laundry. Let them do dishes. Let them help you cook and clean. Give them every little job you can think of, and let them work alongside you. Children love to feel big and helpful.

The days are long, but the years are short. In no time, your children will be ready to start formal lessons. Learn from the regrets of so many others and protect these young years from academic pressures. You’ll be so glad you did.

And this is your final Bob Books book! Congratulations! You made it! Take your student out to ice cream or something because this is a big accomplishment!

Here are the lessons:

Lesson One

• Introduce new sound: ang
• Review appropriate sections in the binder.
• Read: Set 5, Book 8 (“The King”) pp. 1-10

Click here for help introducing the ang sound.

A couple words in this section might trip your students up, so let me explain the rules in case you need them. Because is a be word, of course. In addition to this, in the cause portion of the word, we use the schwa sound. In the word music, remember that this word comes from the word muse.

Lesson Two

• Review appropriate sections in the binder.
• Read: Set 5, Book 8 (“The King”) pp. 11-ff

Before reading this section, tell your child that the word seldom means not very often.

Lesson Three

• Review appropriate sections in the binder.
• Read: Set 5, Book 8 (“The King”) pp. 1-10

Lesson Four

• Review appropriate sections in the binder.
• Read: Set 5, Book 8 (“The King”) pp. 11-ff

There is a sense in which this is just your basic, run of the mill long-a sound. It’s true! But I like to teach this as a blend so that students see that there is an entire word family that uses this combination of letters to make the same sound. It helps with spelling in the future, as well.

And this is the last sight words book … as in ever! Pat yourself on the back, Mama, because you have done a great job, too!

Here are the lessons for this book:

Lesson One

• Review appropriate sections in the binder.
• Read: First Grade Sight Words Set, Book 10 (“Before and After”) pp. all

Lesson Two (optional)

• Review appropriate sections in the binder.
• Read: First Grade Sight Words Set, Book 10 (“Before and After”) pp. all