Early Learning Online

At our house, the younger kids have been able to get online since they were three. (They had way more outside time and reading-with-mom time than computer time though!) I tried to make sure that their computer time was well spent. Here are a few great educational sites to add a bit of fun and learning.

Preschool and Kindergarten Learning Games Online

Starfall
This fun and free site will help you teach your child to read! It starts with an introduction to the alphabet and basic phonics, followed by beginning phonetic stories. then vocabulary building and more reading for experience. The site is colorful and has cheery graphics, without being too overdone. It is a very useful addition to any reading program. If you're not sure how to teach your little one to read, use this site as a guide! It is also free, though they do offer various helps for sale.

Science With Me
A colorful, engaging site that uses fun animated characters to teach science to preschool-to-ten-year-olds. Fun games, worksheets, coloring sheets, experiments, and more. Requires registration, but it is free!

Building Blocks
Matching, a recording studio, discerning feelings...some very nice games!

Poisson Rouge
An adorable site with several learning games.

Sesame Street
Easy, fun learning games...even if your kids don't watch the show!

Build a Neighborhood
...with Mr. Rogers. A sweet game that teaches about the communities we live in.

Nick Jr.
A bit commercial, but there are so many resources here that it's hard to leave off. Games, coloring pages, activities, crafts...and a great search feature that lets you find things by age , subject, etc.

Alphabet Bears
Learn alphabetizing with this fun flash game.

Learn the months
...with this cute song. You'll be singing it in the car for months!

Boowa & Kwala
Cute and fun educational games

Gamequarium Jr
A Portal to many online games for small ones. The links are in the pull-down menu at the top of the page....

Funschool Preschool
An assortment of games and fun for little ones. Some ads.

Homeschool Preschool and Kindergarten Websites for Parents 

Preschool Express
A monthly activity calendar, recipes, activities, art projects.....very useful!

Preschool Printables
Need a coloring sheet for W? A finger puppet pattern? Kindergarten writing paper? Find it here

Stormie's Preschool Curriculum
A month-by-month preschool/kindergarten idea list. Many activities are clever, creative, and actually educational. A great place to look for new ideas

A to Z Kids Stuff Preschool and Kindergarten
A compendium of ideas for units on everything from bugs to rainbows to scissors....

Internet 4 Classrooms Kindergarten
A huge list of games, help sites, idea sites, etc.

Homeschooling Language Arts on the Web

Homeschool Reading and Book Sites

Starfall
A very well-designed, colorful interactive children's reading course online...all free! Great for 4- to 7- year olds!

Scholastic Kids
Games, downloads, and activities for children's literature.

All Info About Reading Education
Lesson plans, activities, worksheets, and other helps for teaching young and beginning adult readers.

Book Adventure
A free site that gives children points and prizes for answering questions about the books they've read! They can earn enough points to get a subscription to Highlights for Children magazine, books, candy, temporary tattoos...Parental permission required, but the site is quite legitimate!

Book Hive
A searchable list of kid's books, with games, coloring pages, quizzes, You can search by subject, genre, reading level, etc. Each book is reviewed , and you may add your own review, Some have advisory notes for parents. A really fine resource!!

All Info About Teen Reading
Features reviews of good books, parent helps, worksheets, and much more!

Homeschool Writing Sites

Free Worksheets
Printable story starters.

Alphadictionary
A site for kids ages 7 to 13. If your child signs up (with parental permission, they will  e-mail her a vocabulary-building kids word-of-the day, called the Goodword Junior, five days a week along with tips and tricks to help her remember correct spelling and pronunciation. There are also games, puzzles, and other fun things to do here. A really great site!!

Family Education Printables
A wide assortment of pages with topics ranging from puzzles about classic kids' books to parts of speech to paragraph writing. This can be very valuable for that end-of-the-year portfolio, and the kids may really like some of the puzzles!

MLA Style Guide
Practice writing college-level reports.

Homeschool Grammar, Spelling and Other Sites

Learning Page
Free membership, and many free printables, including alphabet and handwriting pages in several styles, story ideas, etc.

Kids Page Archive
Many worksheets for kids ages 5 to 12. Vocabulary, rhyming, spelling, grammar, stories, etc.

Eats, Shoots, and Leaves
The punctuation game...

Proofread!!!
An article about editing...with a great photo!

Mad Libs on the Web
By far the easiest and most fun way to learn the parts of speech!! Add words to stories...and read the silly results!!

Fun Brain
Online games to improve vocabulary, spelling, plurals, and other writing skills.

I Know That!
More online games, like Punctuation Paintball and Scrambled Stories.

Anagram Server
Play with your words!!

Don't Buy It!
A site about media propaganda and wise consumerism for teens. Eye-catching and fun!

Beginning Reading

It's possible to teach your child to read with only a pencil and paper and maybe a few pennies for prizes, but most of us like a little more guidance. This is really a brief outline, but it's actually enough for most kids. The important factors are patience, encouragement, and persistence.

Here is my almost sure-fire reading program, developed with my sisters while teaching my younger brother (who wasn't supposed to be able to read at all), then honed on my six kids and several little ones that I babysat. The ages ranged from three to seven, and took anywhere from a few months to a few years.

I've assumed that you read to your child quite frequently: if not, it's never too late to start! Try to find simple books that interest your child. Ones with good artwork may also delight you!

Be careful of the books that you buy to read to your child. There is little that can discourage the love of reading more than a parent who resents reading aloud, and there are few things that can make a parent more resentful of reading than being practically forced to read a badly-written, nasty book over and over for months!! (I have 'accidentally lost' a few particularly vile ones in my time!!) You can be a bit less picky with library books, since they will have to go back anyway...and the time can come as quickly as you need it to!

Also be careful of books that talk down to your child. They can understand much more than they can say, and books with a large vocabulary can be challenging and fun. It's very enjoyable to hear your little one say, "I implore you to exert yourself!" after being read Peter Rabbit...

When your child becomes comfortable and happy with books, and is not quite so inclined to tear them, it's time to learn to read. The outline below is just my way of doing it. There are many different approaches to teaching reading, but this one is simple and cheap, and it works quite well with many kids. Of course, you should investigate other ways, because it may not fit you or your child. It's based on phonics, and uses a bit of sight reading later on.

First, get magnetic letters for your refrigerator, upper case because they're harder to mix up. Put them on for a few days, then start telling the child a few sounds a day...
be sure to use short vowel sounds:

a as in hat
e as in get
i as in pig
o as in hot
u as in hug

and hard consonants:

c as in cat
g as in get

After she's learned a fair number of letters, show her how to combine them to make simple words:

hat
mat
sat
pat
cat
hot
pot

...and so on. Be careful not to let her get into the habit of guessing from the first letter. That's a very hard habit to break later on. One way to discourage that is to give her several words that start with the same letter. Then make simple sentences, like "The fat cat sat on the mat." Throw in family names that she can learn by sight and sound. Add more simple words as you add sounds. Then begin to add words that have long vowel sounds. like cape and date, explaining a bit about the magic of Silent E.



If your schedule permits, make your child a Photo book. I got this idea long ago from a very good book called Anything School Can Do, You Can Do Better . Use folded construction paper, and glue family photos to each page. Write very simple sentences at or just above you child's current reading level, in upper case. Be sure to include family names and details, even if they're not quite phonetic. Your child will learn them by sight and phonics because they're important. These are excellent to put in your child's baby book, to be looked at and treasured years later...even with the chocolate stains and rips from overeager hands!

Then it's time for co-reading, that is, sharing the task. Let the child read the words that she can, while you help out on the harder ones. Pick books with few words on each page, and very large print. Your child will begin to make the transition from upper case only to lower case as needed rather quickly, if he hasn't already picked it up by asking and osmosis.

Try writing words like 'Skip' and 'Hop' on slips of paper, and let the child read the word and then do the activity. Or write a phrase like 'can of corn' on a slip and give it to the child to read and fetch from the pantry. Encourage reading the words she can handle on cereal boxes, signs, newspapers, computers, etc.

An excellent online site for beginning readers is Starfall. This is free, and it has several levels of stories, games and activities. It also gives the kids something to do online like the big kids!

After that, it's time to step back a bit and become a book supplier. Listen to your child read, and make sure she's taking the time to read accurately, but let her have private reading time also. Continue nightly bedtime stories (even young teens often still like them!), and maybe even let your young one stay up a bit later than usual to read in bed!

Truth is, nearly all kids will learn to read by the time they're ten with little or no help. It's thought to be wired into our brains.