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

Reading for Life: Let's Go Shopping!

© Beverley Paine, 2004

Have your children put together a shopping list from the flyer in the junk mail. Younger children can cut and paste pictures of grocery items and you can scribe the words, or have an older child write them beside the picture. Take the list to the shops and ask the children to find what you need on the shelves. Asking older children to be in charge of the shopping trolley and shopping list gives them the opportunity to develop much more than reading skills. You're encouraging them to take responsibility for their own nutrition, health and well-being.

• Extend this practice to everything you buy: toys, camping gear, new electrical items. Children love looking through advertising brochures. Read and compare the various features of each item. As adults they will need to wade through mountains of product information to work out the best buys and get the best deal for things they buy.

• Read aloud and talk about warranty and guarantee information and why it's best to buy something that can be returned if it's faulty. You are empowering your children to be critical and aware consumers, but best of all you are demonstrating the tool that allows us to act assertively in this busy world - reading skills!

• At the supermarket encourage the children to read the labels and compare several brands of the same item. Determine which is the better buy or suits the family's requirements.

• Talk about why some information is large and prominent and other information is so tiny it's hard to read on labels. Ask the children to read warning labels when you get home, or read them aloud. You could also ask them the best place to store the item, or the safest way to use it. Your children will learn that reading skills can prevent nasty accidents and perhaps even save lives.

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.