10 Gifts for Your Child that Won’t Disappoint!→

When we buy a gift for our child, we want it to light up his face.

At the same time, we don't want to overindulge our children with toys that clutter up their rooms and spoil their characters.

To find a happy medium, I’ve created a list of ten gifts that will make your child happy and benefit his brain.

1. The Proverbial Book

Most young children enjoy receiving a book as a gift. You can buy a beautiful edition of a particular book with leather binding or a fancy edition of the book that includes a slipcase.

If your child is younger, choose a cleverly illustrated book like Mother Goose by Silvia Long or Aesop’s Fables by Chronicle Books. For a gift, I would stick to the classics.

Classics have stood the test of time, and your children will cherish them for many years to come, even unto adulthood.

2. Brain Cells at Work

No child ever tires of putting together a puzzle, and how wonderful it is for the budding brain cells. Your child will develop his reasoning and problem-solving skills, he exercises his hand-eye coordination, he builds his sensory/motor skills (lots of pinching, picking, and putting tasks involved), and he feels happy when he accomplishes his mammoth feat.

The latter also helps to build his confidence. Who would have thought your child could gain so much from a puzzle!

The wooden puzzle sets by Melissa and Doug are all-time favorites for younger children. 

For older children, you can try something like a colorful map of Europe.

3. Rainy Day Activities

Rainy days and long summer nights are perfect times for playing board games. Depending upon your child's age, you can buy him games that he'll enjoy playing with friends and family.

Think of games such as Chutes and Ladders, Checkers, and even chess. Board games are perfect for building social skills, especially the art of losing well.

4. Discovering Where Timbuktu Is

Children love playing cards. If you'd like to contribute to your child's education, buying a card game that teaches the countries of the world or the fifty states and capitals is perfect.

Sadly, most children don't learn much geography anymore. But with a good game of cards, your child won’t be one of them.

5. Playing Queen for the Day

A “make-your-own-jewelry” set is better suited for girls because girls love their jewelry! Making jewelry is a lot of fun, it's creative, and the jewelry can be given away as gifts. Children, therefore, will also learn the much-appreciated virtue of generosity. This kit is complete, and the price is reasonable too.

Girls Jewelry Making Kit. 

6. Rocket Man

And boys love rockets! Actually, all the children will have fun making this rocket from a soda bottle and baking soda. The kit comes with instructions, all the supplies you need, and it's easy to do.

The Water Bottle Model Rocket is suitable for children six through the early teens. The water rocket is another activity that is fun to do with other children and encourages cooperation.

7. More Than Just Another Puzzle

Children love brain games. Rubric cubes are a lot of fun, but the wooden brain puzzles are even better. Your child will spend hours trying to figure out the problem, and a child who stays at it long enough is bound to eventually figure it out.

Patience is the name of the game with this kind of puzzle, and patience is a virtue. A brain puzzle is a perfect way to learn a little patience.

Warning: only buy one puzzle. The kits with multiple puzzles will dilute your child’s attention, and he’ll be less likely to solve the mystery. 

8. Stencil Kit

A stencil kit is probably not the first gift that pops into your mind when thinking of a gift for your child, but the truth is that children love to stencil. It's another activity that your child can do with friends, alone, or even while traveling; and it'll keep him occupied for hours.

Children will naturally compliment each other’s work, too, which is another opportunity to learn generosity and kindness towards others.

9. A Musical Adventure

Many children miss the story of Peter and the Wolf, composed by Sergie Prokofiev. Peter and the Wolf is a classical composition that introduces the musical instruments of a symphony through a story about Peter and the Wolf.

Children love to listen to this piece, and they may even show an interest in a particular instrument, which is a great way to get them into the world of classical music.

Musical training will teach your child many virtues, including discipline and perseverance. It also gives him an interest that will elevate his character rather than then let society drag it down.

Peter and the Wolf is the perfect place to start and the ideal gift for your child.

10. The Gift of Andrew Jackson

When all else fails, there's always the 20 dollar bill. Children love to receive money, so don't feel bad if for some reason you can’t buy something. The 20 dollar bill could turn out to be his favorite gift!

It's also an excellent way to introduce your child to the value of a dollar and how to spend it wisely on something worth buying.

The best way to deliver this gift is to buy a money card from your local gift shop and then get a crisp twenty-dollar bill from the bank.

The Don’ts of Buying Children’s Gifts

If you are buying a gift for someone else’s child, you want to be sure to follow these guidelines:

1. Do not buy any toys that make noise (the parents will never forgive you).

2. Do not buy anything electronic (parents are struggling enough with their children and technology).

3. Do not buy candy (many parents do not appreciate this).

That said, if you follow the suggestions above, you will not only make yours or someone else’s child very happy, but you’ll help them become better people too. 

Join the FREE Masterclass: Top 3 Secrets to Homeschooling for Success (Your kids will thank you when they’re grown!) by Liz Hanson

Don’t miss your free download, 31 Screen-Free Activities to Support Your Child's Developing brain.

Get a copy of Liz’s homeschooling Bible, Education’s Not the Point: How Schools Fair to Train Children’s Minds and Nurture Their Characters with Essays by John Taylor Gatto and Dorothy Sayers.

Elizabeth Y. Hanson is a homeschooling thought-leader and the founder of Smart Homeschooler.

As an Educator, Homeschool Emerita, Writer, and Love and Leadership Certified Parenting Coach, she has 23 years of experience working in education.

Developing a comprehensive understanding of how to raise and educate a child, based on tradition and modern research, Liz devotes her time to helping parents to get it right.

Liz is available for one-on-one consultations as needed.

"I know Elizabeth Y. Hanson as a remarkably intelligent, highly sensitive woman with a moral nature and deep insight into differences between schooling and education. Elizabeth's mastery of current educational difficulties is a testimony to her comprehensive understanding of the competing worlds of schooling and education. She has a good heart and a good head. What more can I say?”

—John Taylor Gatto Distinguished educator, public speaker, and best-selling author of Dumbing Us Down: The Hidden Curriculum of Compulsory Schooling. For a copy of The Short Angry History of Compulsory Schooling, click here.

One Reading Habit that Will Increase Your Child's Intelligence→

Not just any kind of reading will help develop and strengthen your child's mind.

You want to provide your kids with literature that will challenge their minds and get them into the habit of applying effort when reading.

Because the more your child actively uses his mind when he's young, and the more he continues to use his mind as he matures, the brighter he'll become.

We know that the brain is an ever-changing organ. It can weaken from misuse or neglect, and it can also become stronger from the right kind of use.

“John Taylor Gatto had his sixth-grade class read and discuss Moby Dick by Herman Melville. ”

Parents say things like, "Well, he only reads comic books, but at least he's reading!"

As John Taylor Gatto put it, "Teach your children to grow up to be readers of more than the daily newspaper."

Comic books are fine for comic relief on occasion. Maybe you're on a road trip or flying cross-country; this might be a time to let your child read a comic book or two or three.

☞ It’s probably prudent not to let comic books work their way into your home though.

Comic books will make his mind lazy because they require almost no effort to read. The pictures tell the story, and the dialogues are simple. When it becomes time to read challenging literature, he won't be able to tackle the vocabulary or follow the longer and more complicated sentence patterns.

He'll complain to you that the book is "boring."

It's not boring; he just hasn't learned to read well. Do not let him blame the book!

Great books expand the mind and help us to understand the complexities of life and ourselves. If we replaced the department of psychology with a department of Shakespeare, we'd be off to a good start in improving our colleges and universities.

The inner workings of the mind and heart are there in his plays.

Once you get used to the language, Shakespeare is no more difficult to read than authors such as Tolstoy or Dostoevsky.

The ability to read great literature is what you want for your children. You want them to be exposed to the great ideas of Western thought that take us all the way back to Ancient Greece.

John Taylor Gatto was very in support of reading great books. It's where he got the seeds for many of his ideas. Had he not been a good reader himself, he would not have been able to plow through all of the material he read to uncover the real history of modern education.

☞ It took a competent reader and thinker to accomplish such a great feat.

I said there was one thing you need to do to increase your child's intelligence, but as I was writing this, another occurred to me, so there are now two things.

The second thing is to homeschool your children, so you expose them to great literature. I say homeschool because, sadly, your children won't get the kind of education they need in public school.

☞ And with a lousy education system comes a dumbed-down people. One of the things not taught anymore is poetry.

Let me leave you with one of my favorite poems. It’s a good one for your children to memorize, and it will inspire them to read more.

There is no frigate like a book

To take us lands away,

Nor any coursers like a page

Of prancing poetry.

This traverse may the poorest take

Without oppress of toll;

How frugal is the chariot

That bears a human soul!

Have your children memorize Emily Dickinson's poem, and supply them with the kind of books to travel lands away!

Upcoming FREE Webinar! How to Raise a Reader with Liz Hanson

Don’t miss our free download, Ten Books Every Well-Educated Child Should Read.

When you join the Smart Homeschooler Academy online course for parents, Liz will share her 6-step framework to raise children of higher intelligence, critical thinking, and of better character.

As a homeschooler, you will never have to worry about failing your children, because working with Liz, you will feel confident, calm, and motivated. She also provides you with the tools and support you need to homeschool successfully.

Teach your child to read before sending him to school! Learn more about Elizabeth's unique course, How to Teach Your Child to Read and Raise a Child Who Loves to Read.

For parents of children under age seven who would like to prepare their child for social and academic success, please begin with Elizabeth’s singular online course, Raise Your Child to Thrive in Life and Excel in Learning.

Elizabeth Y. Hanson is a homeschooling thought-leader and the founder of Smart Homeschooler.

As an Educator, Homeschool Emerita, Writer, and Love and Leadership Certified Parenting Coach, she has 21+ years of experience working in education.

Developing a comprehensive understanding of how to raise and educate a child, based on tradition and modern research, and she devotes her time to helping parents to get it right.

Elizabeth is available for one-on-one consultations as needed.

"I know Elizabeth Y. Hanson as a remarkably intelligent, highly sensitive woman with a moral nature and deep insight into differences between schooling and education. Elizabeth's mastery of current educational difficulties is a testimony to her comprehensive understanding of the competing worlds of schooling and education. She has a good heart and a good head. What more can I say?”

—John Taylor Gatto Distinguished educator, public speaker, and best-selling author of Dumbing Us Down: The Hidden Curriculum of Compulsory Schooling

8 Facts Every Child Should Learn About the Most Sublime Creature on Earth→

What creature is that you are probably wondering?

It is the whale.

We studied dinosaurs in the second grade, yet, dinosaurs pale in comparison to whales. While reading Moby Dick, I discovered a fascination for them because whales are truly sublime.

I’m now convinced that no child should complete childhood without learning about their amazing lives.

Here are 8 facts about whales that you can share with your child:

Fact 1: Whales Are the Largest Creature on Earth

Did you know that whales are the largest animal on Earth, even bigger than the T-Rex Dinosaur? The nine heaviest creatures in the world belong to the whale family. A blue whale weighs 200 tons, and when they give birth, their babies weigh three tons and gain 200 pounds per day!

Compare this to the largest elephant ever to exist (as far as we know), who weighed only 4 tons, and you begin to realize the magnitude of of whales. 

Fact 2: Whales Have the Largest Brains

The sperm whales have the largest brains of any animal, including man. Not only do they have the largest brains, but their brains contain a neocortex, like the human brain. The neocortex governs higher cognitive functions such as planning, memory, empathy, and language.

The sperm whale has a highly sophisticated language that is based on sound. They emit coded clicks at the speed of milliseconds and can emit these sounds at vast distances. 

Scientists today are trying to decode their language using artificial intelligence. Someone even wrote a book about real conversations with whales and how the lessons we learn from them can help us live more joyful lives.

“As for his true brain, the whale, like all things that are mighty, wears a false brow to the common world. ”

— Moby Dick, Herman Melville

Fact 3: Whales Rely on Sound to See

Because most of the whale’s life is spent at the bottom of the ocean, they must rely on sound to see. Whales use click sounds to communicate which is called echolocation. Echolocation is when their sounds bounce off of an object and send back an echo to the whale that tells them where the object is. 

Fact 4: Whales are the loudest animals alive

They rely on click sounds to see, but these sounds can be as loud as 230 decibels making them the loudest animals on earth. In comparison, if you stood next to a jet engine, the engine's sound is about 150 decibels.

Whales are so loud that their clicking sounds can kill a man! 

Fact 5: Whales Can Hold Their Breath for 90 Minutes

Whales can live underwater for about 90 minutes because their bodies can store massive amounts of oxygen in their muscles. When whales surface to breathe, they breathe for about seven minutes before they go underwater again. 

Fact 6: Whales Have Complex Social Structures

Female whales live in multi-generational families. In contrast, the male whales live solitary lives and return to the females only during the mating season.

Whales will mourn the death of a loved one, and they will celebrate the birth of a calf, according to Shane Gero, a behavioral ecologist and founder of the Dominica Sperm Whale Project.

They have different dialects for each whale pod.

Fact 7: A Whale’s Excrement Is More Valuable than Gold!

Yes, it’s true. Whales eat large squid, and the indigestible parts of the squid are eventually excreted. These excretions float in the water for seven years, going through various changes, and can be washed up on shores in the form of what is known as ambergris. 

“It’s beyond comprehension how beautiful it is, It’s transformative. There’s a shimmering quality to it. It reflects light with its smell. It’s like an olfactory gemstone,” is how Mandy Aftel, a perfumer describes ambergris.

It can sell for anywhere from 10K to 100K, depending upon the size. 

In 2021, a group of Yemeni fishermen found 1.5 million dollars worth of ambergris in the floating carcass of a sperm whale!

Fact 8: Great Whales Are an Endangered Species

Sperm whales are the citizens of the ocean, and they are dying.

"Why are they dying?" asks Shane Gero.

And then he answers his own question: "It's us," he says. "All of us." 

The deluge of gargantuan shipping fleets bringing us our goods from all over the world are killing the greatest creature on earth.  Calves are born, but they are dying from accidents caused by large freighter ships.

In the 18th and 19th centuries, sperm whales were hunted for oil and spermiceti, but now they are killed because of our ignorance. It’s ironic that arguably the most intelligent animal on Earth is going extinct because of man’s stupidity, or greed.

Today, six out of 13 great whale species are considered endangered, including the sperm whale who was the subject of Melville’s masterpiece, Moby Dick.

Teach Your Children Well

Teach your children about the greatest creature on Earth when they are young, and you will have no problem getting them to read Moby Dick when they are older.

Moby Dick is the story of an obsessive pursuit for one albino sperm whale named Moby Dick by a man with a wretched heart called Ahab.

While it's not easy to read, it's a powerful and often humorous book with themes of human nature and human folly gracing the pages.

“God help thee, old man, thy thoughts have created a creature in thee; and he whose intense thinking thus makes him a Prometheus; a vulture feeds upon that heart for ever; that vulture the very creature he creates. ”

— Moby Dick, Herman Melville

John Taylor Gatto used to have his sixth-grade students read Moby Dick.

Though I never asked him why out of all the great Western classics, he chose Moby Dick; my guess is because once you read it, you can successfully tackle any other work of great fiction.

☞ Disclaimer: This is not a politically-correct blog.

Don’t miss our free download, Ten Books Every Well-Educated Child Should Read.

When you join the Smart Homeschooler Academy online course for parents of school-age children, we guide you in homeschooling with the classics to raise more intelligent children of a better character.

Enroll using the link below and feel confident knowing you have the guidance and support you need to homeschool successfully.

For parents of children under age seven who would like to prepare their child for social and academic success, please begin with our online course, Raise Your Child to Thrive in Life and Excel in Learning.

Elizabeth Y. Hanson is an Educator, Homeschool Emerita, Writer, and a Love and Leadership Certified Parenting Coach with 20+ years of experience working in children’s education.

Utilizing her unusual skill set, Elizabeth has developed a comprehensive understanding of how to raise and educate a child. She devotes her time to helping parents get it right.

She is available for one-on-one consultations as needed.

“Elizabeth has given us counseling and guidance to help us succeed with our home school planning. When I feel overwhelmed, scared, or lose my confidence, she offers words of wisdom and support.”

— Sherry B., Pittsburg, PA

One Reading Habit That Will Increase Your Child's Intelligence

Not just any kind of reading will help develop and strengthen your child's mind.

You want to provide your kids with literature that will challenge their minds and get them into the habit of applying effort when reading.

Because the more your child actively uses his mind when he's young, and the more he continues to use his mind as he matures, the brighter he'll become.

We know that the brain is an ever-changing organ. It can weaken from misuse or neglect, and it can also become stronger from the right kind of use.

“John Taylor Gatto had his sixth-grade class read and discuss Moby Dick by Herman Melville. ”

Parents say things like, "Well, he only reads comic books, but at least he's reading!"

As John Taylor Gatto put it, "Teach your children to grow up to be readers of more than the daily newspaper."

Comic books are fine for comic relief on occasion. Maybe you're on a road trip or flying cross-country; this might be a time to let your child read a comic book or two or three.

☞ It’s probably prudent not to let comic books work their way into your home though.

Comic books will make his mind lazy because they require almost no effort to read. The pictures tell the story, and the dialogues are simple. When it becomes time to read challenging literature, he won't be able to tackle the vocabulary or follow the longer and more complicated sentence patterns.

He'll complain to you that the book is "boring."

It's not boring; he just hasn't learned to read well. Do not let him blame the book!

Great books expand the mind and help us to understand the complexities of life and ourselves. If we replaced the department of psychology with a department of Shakespeare, we'd be off to a good start in improving our colleges and universities.

The inner workings of the mind and heart are there in his plays.

Once you get used to the language, Shakespeare is no more difficult to read than authors such as Tolstoy or Dostoevsky.

The ability to read great literature is what you want for your children. You want them to be exposed to the great ideas of Western thought that take us all the way back to Ancient Greece.

John Taylor Gatto was very in support of reading great books. It's where he got the seeds for many of his ideas. Had he not been a good reader himself, he would not have been able to plow through all of the material he read to uncover the real history of modern education.

☞ It took a competent reader and thinker to accomplish such a great feat.

I said there was one thing you need to do to increase your child's intelligence, but as I was writing this, another occurred to me, so there are now two things.

The second thing is to homeschool your children, so you expose them to great literature. I say homeschool because, sadly, your children won't get the kind of education they need in public school.

☞ And with a lousy education system comes a dumbed-down people.

Here’s a poem by Emily Dickinson to inspire your kids:

There is no frigate like a book

To take us lands away,

Nor any coursers like a page

Of prancing poetry.

This traverse may the poorest take

Without oppress of toll;

How frugal is the chariot

That bears a human soul!

Have your children memorize Emily Dickinson's poem, and supply them with the kind of books to travel lands away!

Don’t miss our free download, Ten Books Every Well-Educated Child Should Read.

Join the Smart Homeschooler Academy online course for parents and let me guide you in homeschooling to raise intelligent children of good character. You can enroll using the link below and be confident knowing you can and will homeschool successfully.

For parents of children under age seven who would like to prepare their child for social and academic success, please begin with our online course, Raise Your Child Well to Thrive in Life and Excel in Learning.

Elizabeth Y. Hanson is an Educator, Homeschool Emerita, Writer, and a Love and Leadership Certified Parenting Coach with 20+ years of experience working in children’s education.

Utilizing her unusual skill set, Elizabeth has developed a comprehensive understanding of how to raise and educate a child. She devotes her time to helping parents get it right.

She is available for one-on-one consultations as needed.

☞ Disclaimer: This is not a politically-correct blog.☞ Disclaimer: This is not a politically-correct blog.

Increase Your Child's Intelligence by Doing This One Thing

The more your child actively uses his mind when he's young, and the more he continues to use his mind as he matures, the smarter he'll become.

We know that the brain is an ever-changing organ. It can weaken from misuse or neglect, but it can also grow stronger from the right kind of use.

You want your children to stay into the habit of using their minds as they enter the school years. One of the ways you can help your child strengthen his mind, and thereby increase his intelligence, is by providing him with good literature to read.

“John Taylor Gatto had his sixth-grade class read and discuss Moby Dick by Herman Melville. ”

As John Taylor Gatto once said, "Teach your children to grow up to be readers of more than the daily newspaper."

You will hear parents say things like, "Well, my child only reads comic books but at least he's reading!"

Comic books are fine for comic relief on occasion. If your family is on a road trip or flying cross-country, this might be a fair time to occupy your child with a few comic books.

It’s probably prudent though to NOT let comic books work their way into your home.

Comic books, as well as substandard literature, will make your child’s mind lazy because the dialogues are simple and too many pictures tell the story. When reading is made so easy for a child, he isn’t able to improve his skill of reading.

When it becomes time to read challenging literature with few or no pictures, he won't be able to tackle the vocabulary or follow the longer and more complicated sentence patterns. Nor will he have any pictures to help him along.

And then he'll complain to you that the book is "boring."

The book is not the problem; your child has not developed the skill required to read more difficult and challenging books.

Great books expand the mind and help us to understand the complexities of life and of ourselves.

If we replaced the department of psychology with a department of Shakespeare, we’d be less medicated and probably much happier too, because we’d have a better understanding of how to live our lives.

The inner workings of the mind and heart are there in his plays as is the secret to a life well-lived.

Once you get used to the language, Shakespeare is no more difficult to read than authors such as Tolstoy or Dostoevsky.

The ability to read great literature is what you want for your children. If you are raising children in the West, you want them to be exposed to the great ideas of Western thought upon which our civilization is built.

John Taylor Gatto was very in support of reading the great books. It's where he got the seeds for many of his own ideas.

I said there was one thing you need to do to increase your child's intelligence, but as I am writing this, another occurred to me, so let me share it with you now.

Homeschool your children because your children won't get the kind of education they need in public or private schools.

“Dumbing us down,” as John Taylor Gatto put it.

A lousy education system produces people who lack the kind of mind it takes to read the great books; people who are content to be frivolously entertained while going through the precious journey of life without meaning or purpose.

Emily Dickinson summed up the joy of reading in one of her poems:

There is no frigate like a book

To take us lands away,

Nor any coursers like a page

Of prancing poetry.

This traverse may the poorest take

Without oppress of toll;

How frugal is the chariot

That bears a human soul!

Have your children memorize Emily Dickinson's poem, and supply them with the kind of books that take them lands away.

Don’t miss our free download, Ten Books Every Well-Educated Child Should Read.

Become a Smart Homeschooler to raise smart, ethical, and critically-thinking children. Join the Smart Homeschooler Academy online course and feel secure knowing that you have what you need to homeschool successfully as well as live ongoing support from Elizabeth.

For parents of children under age seven who would like to prepare their child for social and academic success, please begin with our online course, Raise Your Child Well to Thrive in Life and Excel in Learning.

Elizabeth Y. Hanson is an Educator, Homeschool Emerita, Writer, and a Love and Leadership Certified Parenting Coach with 20 years of experience working in children’s education.

Utilizing her unusual skill set, coupled with her unique combination of mentors, Elizabeth has developed a comprehensive understanding of how to raise and educate a child. She devotes her time to helping parents get it right.

☞ Disclaimer: This is not a politically-correct blog.

3 Criteria for Choosing a Good Children’s Book→

Our great books for children have been replaced by silly books or books that give children the wrong ideas about what it means to be a civilized human being.

For example, there is a children’s book titled My Dad is a B***head that sells pretty well on Amazon.

While it's important that you read often to your child when he's young, it’s also important to know what kind of books to choose for your children.

3 Criteria for Choosing a Good Book

Below are three criteria for discriminating between a good children’s book and one that should be relegated to the junk pile.

Elevate His Mind

Literature should elevate a child's mind, not debase it. He should encounter heroes and heroines that are worthy of emulation. 

The characters should be kind-hearted, ethical, and well-mannered. Think of Pollyanna, Anne of Green Gables, and Little Lord Fauntleroy. 

Teach Language Skills

Literature should teach children excellent language skills and help to develop your child’s vocabulary.

As he grows older and comes across words such as philanthropist, humiliation, valiant, nautical, or grave, he'll already be familiar with them. 

Test your ten-year-old now. Is your child familiar with these words? If not, you may want to reevaluate the kind of literature you're exposing him to.

Respect

The attitude the characters have towards parents, adults, and authority should be one of reverence, respect, and obedience. 

Any child's book that features ill-mannered, vulgar children as the hero or heroine should not be allowed. 

THE UNDERLYING CONCERN

The bigger problem with the B***head story is that it was written by a father, to his son.

“To raise respectful children, you must be a good leader.”

— John Rosemond

This is the plight many parents find themselves in today; they fail to be effective leaders and role models to their children.

We need to understand what makes a decent person, what makes a happy person, what makes a successful person, and then we need to do our best to provide a suitable environment for our child to become this person.

Supplying children with quality literature is one place to start.

Don’t miss our free download, Ten Books Every Well-Educated Child Should Read.

When you join the Smart Homeschooler Academy online course for parents, Liz will share her 6-step framework to raise children of higher intelligence, critical thinking, and of better character.

As a homeschooler, you will never have to worry about failing your children, because working with Liz, you will feel confident, calm, and motivated. She also provides you with the tools and support you need to homeschool successfully.

Teach your child to read before sending him to school! Learn more about Elizabeth's unique course, How to Teach Your Child to Read and Raise a Child Who Loves to Read.

For parents of children under age seven who would like to prepare their child for social and academic success, please begin with Elizabeth’s singular online course, Raise Your Child to Thrive in Life and Excel in Learning.

Elizabeth Y. Hanson is a homeschooling thought-leader and the founder of Smart Homeschooler.

As an Educator, Homeschool Emerita, Writer, and Love and Leadership Certified Parenting Coach, she has 21+ years of experience working in education.

Developing a comprehensive understanding of how to raise and educate a child, based on tradition and modern research, and she devotes her time to helping parents to get it right.

Elizabeth is available for one-on-one consultations as needed.

"I know Elizabeth Y. Hanson as a remarkably intelligent, highly sensitive woman with a moral nature and deep insight into differences between schooling and education. Elizabeth's mastery of current educational difficulties is a testimony to her comprehensive understanding of the competing worlds of schooling and education. She has a good heart and a good head. What more can I say?”

—John Taylor Gatto Distinguished educator, public speaker, and best-selling author of Dumbing Us Down: The Hidden Curriculum of Compulsory Schooling

Goodbye, Mr. Potato Head

Mr. Potato Head is losing his gender, at least on the box he comes in. Moving forward, he will be known only as Potato Head.

It's a little confusing, so let me explain: he's still a Mister in the box but not on the box.

Apparently there were a lot of articles that emerged Friday morning spreading fast the news that the toy company, Hasbro, who created the character of Mr. Potato Head in the 1950s, was going gender-neutral.

But then, the news article I was reading, by CNN, was updated later when Hasbro tweeted that the brand name had changed but not the characters.

I was relieved to learn that. 

When I was young, we had a funny sitcom about a talking horse called Mister Ed. After reading the Potato Head article, I was trying to imagine what would happen if Mister Ed became just Ed, but then that's a man's name.

And that got me thinking, exactly how would the TV producers handle Mister Ed today? Would they have to change his name? And what would they change it to since names from the beginning of time have always been based on gender? 

And what about adults? When I was young, children still addressed grown-ups with titles such as, Mr. Jones or Mrs. Smith. Since we were not allowed to call an adult by their first name, what would we have done if the gender issue had existed then?

Would we have had to drop the Mr. and Mrs. when we spoke to an adult? As calling an adult by their last name was rude, dropping the titles would have put us in another bind.

My daughter told me at gender-neutral Berkeley, on the first day of her classes, the professors ask each student to state their pronoun preference. Some classes have as many as 300-400 students.

This perplexed me because I wondered how the teacher would then keep all of that straight? If the professor has to know what the pronoun preference for each student is, does that mean that every time they need to use someone's pronoun they have to look at their roster, find the person's name, see their pronoun preference, and then speak? 

As I considered this, I couldn't help but think about the cost of tuition and how much class time this must take up?

Anyhow, I continued reading the article and found that Mattel, the maker of Barbie dolls, also wanted to introduce "a multi-dimensional view of beauty and fashion." To accomplish this, they introduced new dolls with disabilities, hair loss, and “vitigilio.”

I'm not sure what vitigilio is but I know that vitiligo is related to a disease affecting the skin pigmentation. 

Either way, it reminded me of a time when I was waiting to get my primary health care license in Chinese medicine. I worked for a company that sold a product for treating hair loss based on Chinese herbs. One day I was in a salon talking about the product to the owner when one of her customers came in. 

The customer, an attractive young woman, was invited into the back room by the owner.  While I didn't understand why she had been invited to join our conversation, she understood. She asked me if she could show me something. I said that she could.

She pulled her hair off and was completely bald. To clarify, her hair was a wig; she had no hair. She suffered from a disease called alopecia which causes all of a person's hair to fall out.

It was a shock to witness this, and I'm sorry, Mattel, but it was not at all beautiful. So when Mattel says they want to promote “beauty and fashion” by making a doll with thinning hair, again, I'm confused. Women and men spend billions of dollars each year to not have thinning and balding hair. 

Does Mattel not know this?

Potato Head aside, what all this confusion indicates to me is that we are beginning to lose a grip on a reality that we have agreed upon since the beginning of time. 

We are not thinking rationally and logically because we have been dumbed down by an educational system being manipulated by the corporate world since the mid-1800's and which now includes tycoons like Bill Gates. 

Gates has far more global power today than any one man should ever have. Where are the checks and balances for such unrestrained greed and lust for power?

And is it a coincidence that he largely funded the development of a national curriculum, and that most schoolchildren are now at home learning online?

It's pretty amazing if it is. 

If I were a young parent today, I would reflect on your child's exposure to the gender conversation very seriously, and I would do several things to protect them from it and anything related to it. 

Understand that this nefarious social conditioning taking place in school and the media is inevitably destined to alter their understanding of what is beautiful, good, and true.  

I want to share my 8 Steps to Protect Your Child's Heart and Mind with you, but before I do I need to make a request. Please resist the inclination to ignore them because you think they are too extreme.

It is precisely extreme measures we must take to win this battle because we are too far out in left field now. 

Personally, I don't care what people do behind closed doors, and I believe that each human being possesses an inherent dignity that is worthy of respect, but I have to draw a line when aggressive marketing campaigns are launched to literally alter our perception of reality in order to satisfy a very small group of people.

If you want to protect your children and are ready to be proactive, here is a downloadable list of 8 things you can do to make sure what's beautiful, good, and true in life remains beautiful, good, and true in your children's eyes too.

Beauty. Goodness. Truth. Now those are ideals worth pondering; those are ideals worth striving for.

On a final note, you can save your money because Potato Head is a toy not worth buying. He occupies your children's time for about five minutes and then they get bored. My kids played far longer with two sticks that cost me nothing than they ever did with Mr. Potato Head.

Still, I don't like to see the Mr. of Potato Head removed from the box.

Don’t miss our free download, Ten Books Every Well-Educated Child Should Read.

Become a Smart Homeschooler, literally, and give your child a first-rate, screen-free education at home and enjoy doing it. Join the Smart Homeschooler Academy online course.

For parents of children under age seven, Raise Your Child Well to Live a Triumphant Life, is where you want to start.

Elizabeth Y. Hanson is an educator, veteran homeschooler, a lover of the classics, and a Love and Leadership certified parenting coach with 19 years of experience working in children’s education.

Utilizing her unusual skill set, coupled with the unique mentors she was fortunate to have, Elizabeth has developed a comprehensive understanding of how to raise and educate a child. She devotes her time to helping parents get it right.

Disclaimer: This is not a politically-correct blog.

Your Children Must Learn to Write Verse!*

According to Mr. Gwynne (of GwynneTeaching.com and the author of Gwynne’s Grammar), all schoolchildren in England, century after century, used to be taught how to write verse. Back then, writing verse was considered an elemental component of an elementary education

How many adults do you know today who can write verse? Allow me to answer that question for you. Most likely, none.  At least, not classical verse, which is the topic under discussion in what follows.

Fundamental opening question: what exactly is real verse, classical verse?

Let us begin by looking at what of modern verse, more commonly known as "free verse," consists of, and, after that, do the same for traditional verse. 

Free verse is when someone takes a thought and writes it in a style that may or may not offer a vague hint of traditional poetry, but pays no attention to the rules of traditional poetry, and in consequence is not, technically speaking, poetry at all.

Let's look at an example of free verse: this, from T. S. Eliot’s “The Hollow Men”:

 We are the hollow men

 We are the stuffed men

 Leaning together

 Headpiece filled with straw. Alas!

 Our dried voices, when

 We whisper together

 Are quiet and meaningless

 As wind in dry grass

 Or rats' feet over broken glass

 In our dry cellar

“Free verse proliferated in the twentieth century because it was “modernistic”, secular and easier to write; but it moved poetry closer and closer to prose until it reached the point when it was no longer possible to tell the difference when read aloud.”

— Geoff Ward, Academic

Now, let me give you an example of traditional verse, in the first stanza of Robert Frost’s poem “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening”:

Whose woods these are, 

I think I know,

His house is in 

The village though

He will not see 

Me sitting here, 

To watch his woods

Fill up with snow.

Please read it two or three times out loud to get a sense of the feel of the poem. That done, now read a later "stanza" of T. S. Eliot’s “The Hollow Men”:

Let me be no nearer

In death's dream kingdom

Let me also wear

Such deliberate disguises

Rat's coat, crowskin, crossed staves

In a field

Behaving as the wind behaves

No nearer-

Please read that "poem" out loud two or three times too. 

Notice that, in the genuine poem by Frost, there is an exactness in the number of units that each line is divided into. In consequence, the poem has a rhythm. By contrast, in Eliot's "poem" nothing is measured at all; there is no rhythm of any kind. It could perhaps be not unfairly described as a free-flowing regurgitation of thought. 

 In Eliot's "poem" each line simply has as many feet (units) as Eliot happened to feel like giving it. Far from there being any coherent structure to the “poem”, each "stanza" has an indeterminate number of lines broken up into lines at random – which, by any traditional definition or practice, simply is not poetry.

“Led mainly by Ezra Pound in the United States, and quickly followed by T. S. Eliot in England with “The Waste Land,” both meter and and rhyming were abandoned, first by very few and then by more and more until where we are today, when they are scarcely to be seen today in published poetry.”

— Mr. N. M. Gwynne

In summary of the essential difference between classical poetry and modern poetry-so-called that we have arrived at: what is referred to as free verse is -- by contrast with traditional, true poetry -- in reality no different from prose. In no way, shape or form does modern so-called poetry bear any real resemblance to poetry as traditionally recognized over the past several thousand years dating back to Homer and before. 

Please think about this, good readers. For centuries—no, for millennia—the term “poetry” was given to a particular type of writing that met certain exacting criteria; whereas, by contrast, as with so many things in our “brave new world,” we have kept the name, but completely lost its meaning. 

Might you perhaps be wondering if I am exaggerating? Well, consider the modern Orwellian tendency of so many people in today’s world to adjust the meaning of terms to suit our version of reality.  

Homeschooling no longer means schooling at home outside schooling institutions. Now included as constituents of homeschooling are charter schools and online virtual public schools. Parents who want to be called "homeschoolers" no longer need to do their own teaching of their children, and to do it at home, as traditional homeschoolers have always done in the past, but can now enroll their children in a school and still call themselves "homeschoolers."

A mother is now called a "primary care giver." Anyone who cares for the same child while the mother works is also called a primary care giver, even though he or she is not the mother. (The implication here is that anyone can fulfill a child's need for his mother, which is not true.) 

Homosexuality, originally called “one of the four sins crying out to Heaven for vengeance” in traditional catechisms, more recently rated as “a carnal sin,” and then, more recently still, defined as a mental illness, is now considered to be nothing more than a lifestyle choice. Fundamentally  it is not a choice of lifestyle, however. At root, it is a choice of sexual activity, full stop.

Words frame our realities, something it would behove us not to forget. We need to work diligently to preserve our language and thereby, ultimately, to preserve our reality, and poetry is one of the means by which we can do this. The words that make up a poem, however, must be more than free-flowing. They must be used with precision, in accordance with the rules governing poetry.

While it is true that words can change their meanings over time, nevertheless, if we are to preserve our perennial understanding of reality, a tree  should always remain a tree and a rose should always remain a rose. When we state that a tree is no longer a tree and a rose no longer a rose, we have, whether intentionally or otherwise, altered our reality.

And when reality is altered in a way that decreases our intellectual powers and our heart-felt sensibilities, as the meaning of the word “poetry” has been altered in recent times, should we not oppose, even fight, the change?

Mr. Gwynne thinks that we should. According to Mr. Gwynne (in the U.S. edition of his book Gwynne’s Grammar):

In order to be categorized as verse,

(1) the verse has to be made up of lines, and each line has to have a fixed number of accents or stresses, and each accent has to have a fixed number of unstressed syllables, one or two, attached to it, and

(2) each line has to be divided into feet and each foot has to have a specific combination of accented – stressed -- syllables and unaccented syllables.

If it has a regular meter and regularly rhymes at various intervals, it is called "rhyming verse." If it has a regular meter but does not rhyme, it is called "blank verse." Verse of either kind is what verse has always been in the past and what it must always remain in future in order to be justifiably referred to as “verse.”

To determine if a piece of writing is truly a poem, rather than prose posing as a poem, the reader must be able to "scan" the poem. That is to say, the reader must be able to determine how many feet (see above) per line the poem has and where the accents/stresses in each foot are placed. There are various forms of meter, but, to write poetry, you must use with precision whatever meters you decide to use. 

Composing a true poem demands that you choose words for each line (1) that fit your meter and (2) the stresses of which (in each word) fall on the correct syllable of whatever word is used in any particular place, and never on the wrong syllable. To do this successfully is genuinely demanding for the brain. 

Robert Frost had to think hard and carefully about each line in the poem that he was composing; T. S. Eliot minimally so by comparison. 

Adequately skilled poets know that they cannot just pick any word and put it anywhere in the sentence that seems fitting at first sight. Such poets know that each word must have a precise position in the sentence that “works” if the sentence is to succeed with its readers. They need to give careful thought to finding the exact word for in the line of the poem that it is needed for, and then to fit it in exactly the right place there.

Let us now have another look at that opening of the first stanza of Robert Frost’s “Stopping by Woods…”: 

Whose woods these are, 

I think I know,

His house is in 

The village though…

Can you “hear” that each line has four units, and that the accent is on the second and the fourth syllable in each line, creating a rhythm and natural flow to the line; so that it rolls comfortably off your tongue as you read it?

That of course is not mere accident, but exactly what Frost intended. The poem is regarded as a classic and has stood the test of time partly because it is a poem that follows traditional rules for verse. Following traditional rules of verse is an essential part of poetry that is genuinely glorious, as well as of poetry that is “merely” good poetry! 

Now let us return to that first stanza of Eliot’s:

 We are the hollow men

 We are the stuffed men

 Leaning together

 Headpiece filled with straw. Alas!

 Our dried voices, when

 We whisper together

 Are quiet and meaningless

 As wind in dry grass

 Or rats' feet over broken glass

 In our dry cellar

Line one has three feet; line two has three feet with a different rhythm; line three has two feet; line four has four feet; line five has three feet; line six has two and a half feet; line seven has three feet; line eight has three feet of a different form from those of line seven; line nine has four feet;  line ten has two and a half feet.

If you were to look, stanza by stanza, through the whole "poem" (most of which I have not quoted), you would also find that each "stanza" has a different number of lines.  

There is no flow or rhythm to Eliot’s words. There are some clever phrases, such as "We are the hollow men, We are the stuffed men,” but a clever phrase here and there is not sufficient to make genuine poetry. 

Also, the stresses are out of joint and, as one reads through the “poem,” the sounds feel jerky to the ear. It may be considered good writing, though even that is arguable, but it is not poetry.

Poetry is a science as much as it is an art. There is both a mathematical and a grammatical element to it,  and if either of those two elements is neglected, let alone if both of them are, a poem cannot be competent, let alone great. Meaningful, it might possibly be, but it cannot belong to the category of poem!

Let us look at two more stanza's, each by a different poet. Make your judgement as to which of them needed the greater intelligence and skill and intellectual prowess for its composition, and then move on to where I tell you who wrote them:

There is a change—and I am poor;

Your love hath been, nor long ago,

A fountain at my fond heart's door,

Whose only business was to flow;

And flow it did; not taking heed

Of its own bounty, or my need.

*     *     *

“I have a lover with hair that falls

like autumn leaves on my skin.

Water that rolls in smooth and cool

as anesthesia. Birds that carry

all my bullets into the barrel of the sun.”

If you said the last poem, well, perhaps. It  was written by the upcoming, contemporary "poet," Brian Turner. Turner actually won some literary recognition for his poetry. 

Now, may the real poet, out of the two of them, stand up. William Wordsworth: the first of the two verses above is from his poem “The Complaint.”

I rest my case. 

Your children should learn to write verse for several reasons.

1. Learning to write good verse produces good writers.

2. It expands your vocabulary and your understanding of the precise meaning of words.

3. It helps to preserve the English language, the language of great writers such as George Gascoigne, William Shakespeare  and John Milton. 

4. Learning to write good verse compels the writer to learn how to turn a phrase well; a skill without which, if you do not master it, you can never be a great writer, and with which, if you do master it, could bring you into the catalogue of the most remembered writers of all time. 

To turn a clever phrase -- to say things with an eloquence, a profundity and a beauty in a way no one has ever achieved with them before -- will improve even your prose one-hundred fold.  Examples of such achievements:

"They were the best of times, they were the worse of times." -- Charles Dickens

“We are such stuff as dreams are made on, and our little life is rounded with a sleep.” – William Shakespeare

“Solitude sometimes is best society.”  -- John Milton

*This blog post is a combined effort of both myself (Elizabeth) and Mr. Gwynne. While I wrote the article, Mr. Gwynne kindly edited it and thereby improved upon it significantly, to which I owe him many thanks.

Has Your Child Studied the Greatest Creature on Earth?

What creature is that? You might ask.

It is the whale.

When I think about it, I find it strange that I spent so much of my life knowing so little about whales. I don't remember studying them in school; however, I do remember studying dinosaurs in the second grade, yet, dinosaurs pale in comparison to whales.

But while reading Moby Dick, I find a fascination for whales emerging because they are undoubtedly sublime creatures, if not the most sublime. 

Here are 8 facts about whales that you can share with your child:

Fact 1: They Are the Largest Creature on Earth

Did you know that they are the largest animal on Earth, even bigger than the T-Rex Dinosaur? The nine heaviest creatures belong to the whale family. A blue whale weighs 200 tons, and when they give birth, their babies weigh three tons and gain 200 pounds per day!

Compare this to the largest elephant ever to exist (as far as we know), who weighed only 4 tons, and you begin to realize the magnitude of these creatures. 

Fact 2: They Have the Largest Brains

The sperm whales have the largest brains of any animal, including man. Not only do they have the largest brains, but their brains contain a neocortex, like the human brain. The neocortex governs higher cognitive functions such as planning, memory, empathy, and language.

The sperm whale has a highly sophisticated language that is based on sound. They emit coded clicks at the speed of milliseconds and can emit these sounds at vast distances. 

Scientists today are trying to decode their language using artificial intelligence. Someone even wrote a book about real conversations with whales and how the lessons we learn from them can help us live more joyful lives.

“As for his true brain, the whale, like all things that are mighty, wears a false brow to the common world. ”

— Moby Dick, Herman Melville

Fact 3: They Rely on Sound to See

Because most of the whale’s life is spent at the bottom of the ocean, they must rely on sound to see. The clicks they use to communicate also facilitate them in what is called echolocation. Echolocation is when the click sounds they make bounce off of an object and send back an echo to the whale that tells them where the object is. 

Fact 4: They are the loudest animals alive

They rely on click sounds to see, and these sounds can be as loud as 230 decibels making them the loudest animals alive. In comparison, if you stood next to a jet engine, the engine's sound is about 150 decibels. Whales are so loud that their clicking sounds can kill a man. 

Fact 5: Whales Hold Their Breath for 90 Minutes

Whales can live underwater for about 90 minutes because their bodies can store massive amounts of oxygen in their muscles. When whales surface to breathe, they breathe for about seven minutes before they go underwater again. 

Fact 6: Whales Have Complex Social Structures

Female whales live in multi-generational families while the male whales live solitary lives and return to the females during the mating season.

Whales will mourn the death of a loved one, and they will celebrate the birth of a calf, according to Shane Gero, a behavioral ecologist and founder of the Dominica Sperm Whale Project. They have different dialects for each whale pod.

Fact 7: Their Excrement Is More Valuable than Gold!

Yes, it’s true. Whales eat large squid, and the indigestible parts of the squid are eventually excreted. These excretions float in the water for seven years, going through various changes, and can be washed up on shores in the form of what is known as ambergris. 

“It’s beyond comprehension how beautiful it is, It’s transformative. There’s a shimmering quality to it. It reflects light with its smell. It’s like an olfactory gemstone,” is how Mandy Aftel, a perfumer describes ambergris.

It can sell for anywhere from 10K to 100K, depending upon the size. 

Fact 8: Great Whales Are an Endangered Species

Sperm whales are the citizens of the ocean, and they are dying.

"Why are they dying?" asks Shane Gero. He answers his own question: "It's us," he says. "All of us." 

The deluge of gargantuan shipping fleets on our oceans to bring us our goods from all over the world are killing them.  Calves are born, and they are dying from accidents caused by large freighter ships.

In the 18th and 19th centuries sperm whales were hunted for oil and spermiceti, but now they are killed because of our ignorance. It’s ironic that arguably the most intelligent animal on Earth is going extinct because of man’s stupidity.

Today, six out of 13 great whale species are considered endangered including the sperm whale who was the subject of Melvilles masterpiece.

Teach Your Children Well

Teach your children about the greatest creature on Earth when they are young. After they reach adolescence, you can read Moby Dick with them.

Moby Dick is not an easy book to read, but it's a powerful book with many themes of human nature and human folly woven through the tale of an obsessive pursuit of one albino Sperm whale named Moby Dick by a man with a wretched heart called Ahab.

“God help thee, old man, thy thoughts have created a creature in thee; and he whose intense thinking thus makes him a Prometheus; a vulture feeds upon that heart for ever; that vulture the very creature he creates. ”

— Moby Dick, Herman Melville

John Taylor Gatto used to have his sixth-grade students read Moby Dick.

Though I never asked him why he chose Moby Dick, my guess is that it was because once you read Moby Dick, you can successfully tackle any other work of great fiction.. 

Don’t miss our free download, Ten Books Every Well-Educated Child Should Read.

Become a Smart Homeschooler and give your child a stellar, screen-free education at home and enjoy doing it. Join the Smart Homeschooler Academy online course. Special Covid pricing will remain through December 10, 2020.

Free Download: How to Raise a More Intelligent Child and an Excellent Reader—a reading guide and book list with 80+ carefully chosen titles.

Elizabeth Y. Hanson is an educator, veteran homeschooler, and a Love and Leadership certified parenting coach with 19 years of experience working in children’s education. Using her unusual skill set, coupled with the unique mentors she was fortunate to have, Elizabeth has developed a comprehensive understanding of how to raise and educate a child. She devotes her time to helping parents get it right.

Disclaimer: This is not a politically-correct blog.

How To Teach Your Child To love Reading

In the current school system, they've lost the spirit of reading and reading is just another subject to be tested on. Children are taught to read too early, too, which hinders their chances of falling in love with reading for its own sake. 

“A person who won’t read has no advantage over one who can’t read.”

— Mark Twain

If you want your child to become a good reader, you should teach him/her to read when they are developmentally ready, and reading should be something they learn to do for pleasure.

Not to pass an exam. 

If you have young children, then you are probably much younger than I and, therefore, you were probably not taught to read the same way I was taught. 

Let me share my reading experience with you in the hopes that you might imitate it with your own children and raise good readers despite this illiterate time. 

It will be a mammoth feat if you can do it. I believe you can. 

Here's My Story:

What My School Taught

Miss. Gilman was my first-grade teacher, and she taught me to read when I was six. 

Maybe it was her high-heeled black pumps that let you know she was headed your way, or her bright red lipstick that never seemed to fade, but I was a little afraid of Miss Gilman. I was also in awe of her. I think we all were.

I have no recollection of struggling to learn, only that she gave us our instructions and within days I was reading. Learning how to read unlocked the door to another world for me, a world of fascinating characters where anything and everything was possible. 

I would get lost in my books for hours, and for hours every day, I got lost. 

One thing was sure back then: reading was never treated as a chore. It was never something we did for school work. We read to enjoy the story as it unfolded in our minds, and as we fell in love with certain characters in our books.

Each book I read became my favorite book. Each character left its mark in my memory, influencing my ideas about the world and who I was.

No Assigned Reading

We were never assigned books to read. Instead, we were taken to the school library and allowed to choose books that we wanted to read. 

No Book Reports

Miss Gilman never asked me to write a single book report. During my elementary years, I don't remember writing a book report for any of my teachers. 

No Testing

That was my experience learning to read in school. No reading assignments. No book reports. No testing.

Freedom to choose from a selection of books.

My life at home supported Miss Gilman's approach to reading too.

What My Home Taught

At home, books were treated as something special. My father modeled reading for us as he always had a book in his hand. Not just any book, but a classic book, and those were the books he would gift us with too. 

He introduced us to the great Western canon of literature. We even had a library in our house, a room that was lined with built-in shelves and dedicated entirely to books. 

In both school and the home, reading was introduced to me as something enjoyable. I looked forward to reading like I would look forward to riding my bike or playing with a friend. 

Today's children don't look forward to reading, and they hardly read anymore. There are multiple reasons for this; one of them is the way learning to read taught to schoolchildren. 

Children are taught to read when they are still too young, they grow frustrated because of it, and they subsequently develop a negative association with reading.

Not all children, but too many children. When was the last time you saw a child reading in public? For me, it was four years ago. I remember precisely where too. 

I was going into Home Goods, and as I entered through the doors, my eyes fell on a little girl curled up in a couch, and she had a open book in her hand. 

I haven't witnessed a child reading in public since.

Contributing further to a decline in reading are the tests children are given to determine their reading skills and the boring book reports they are required to write. 

To add insult to injury, too many children lose confidence in their intelligence when their level of reading is less than others in the class.

Why do we teach a skill so vital to acquiring knowledge in such a careless way? If children are not good readers today, shouldn't we try to understand why and correct the problem?

But we don't. Instead, we carry on making the same mistakes we've been making ever since children decided that reading wasn't worth their time. 

Be a prudent parent by teaching your child to love reading before you put him/her into the school system. 

Don't take the chance of letting the school mess up the one skill that will ultimately impact your child's level of intelligence and understanding. 

Dumbed-Down was the phrase John Taylor Gatto used in the title his book about the miseries of public education.

What Your Homeschool Will Teach

If you're homeschooling, your chances of raising a good reader are much, much higher than if you put your child into school. 

No tests. No book reports. No assigned reading until they are older.

“A room without books is like a body without a soul.”

— Cicero

Model reading for your children. Surround your home with great books. Discuss books with other adults and let your children overhear your conversations. Give books a priority in your home, and your children will learn to prioritize books.

How to Raise a More Intelligent Child and an Excellent Reader—a free guide and book list with over 80+ carefully chosen titles.

Homeschool the smart way by joining the Smart Homeschooler Academy to learn how to give your child the best of an elite education at home.

Elizabeth Y. Hanson is an educator, veteran homeschooler and a Love and Leadership certified parenting coach with 17 years experience working in children’s education.

Using her unusual skill set, she has developed a comprehensive and unique understanding of how to raise and educate a child, and she devotes her time towards helping parents get it right.