Beverley Paine's Australian Home School Curriculum: Tips for Learning How to Read

Everything New is Old Again

© Beverley Paine, 2004

I wish I'd kept my favourite books from childhood. I had many treasures: the tiny book of nursery rhymes I taught myself to read with, an ancient cloth hardback with gold-edged pages and fascinating colour plates as old as my grandmother; cheap books from Coles with breathtaking adventures. These are books I would have shared with my children and read again with great pleasure. There's something about an old, much loved book.

Way back in 1972, Carol Chomsky found a correlation between children's linguistic stages and the number of books mothers recalled with pleasure from their own childhood and shared with their children. Even if you only remember two or three books it's worth sharing them with your child. Don't force these books onto your children though. April, my eldest, steadfastly refused to be interested in the authors I enthused about, but if I allowed her to find and explore them on her own, by making sure these treasures were available in the home, she devoured them at a great rate.

I did keep a couple of books though, and surprisingly for a child that read every novel or story book in sight, these two books were large illustrated history books. Although the text and illustrations were dated, my children found them fascinating and a great starting point for their own historical explorations. They also gave rise to insightful conversations about the cultural bias deeply embedded in historical accounts. As a result we've all become critical readers of both historical and current affairs.

photo of Beverley and Robin Paine Pioneering members of the home education movement in Australia, Beverley and Robin Paine are passionate advocates of true educational choice for families. They began homeschooling their children in 1986 and three years later started the South Australian Home Based Learners network. Beverley wrote Getting Started with Homeschooling in 1995-97 and since then continues to write books and booklets on home education. She balances spending time helping home educators with working in her garden and renovating her home, as well as continuing to build her collection of writing on a variety of homeschooling subjects. Beverley maintains an extensive collection of websites as well as several Yahoo groups supporting families teaching their children at home. In 2007 Beverley joined the HEA and became a committee member in 2008: she also edits and produce the HEA Newsletter, HEA magazine, Stepping Stones for Home Educators, annual Resource Directory and other HEA publications. If you'd like to keep in touch with what Beverley is up to her in her life, sign up for the Homeschool Australia Newsletter or visit her Homeschool AustraliaFacebook page.