Good read

A homeschooling Beginners Manual by RC Cannon was a pretty good read. The book gives many tips and tricks to homeschooling your child.

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Very Informative

This book contains good information for new homeschooling parents or anyone looking into homeschooling.

Jon Turner did a good job narrating it.

I received this audio-book free for an honest review by the author, narrator, or publisher. Thank you!!!

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Intro to homeschooling

PROs:
- good overview of homeschooling benefits
- compelling arguments that homeschooling is a viable option which is getting more popular all the time
- homeschooling is hard and takes a lot of time and work. I'm glad this isn't sugar-coated
- acknowledgement and overview of available resources, particularly online

CONs:
- chapter 2 does a disservice by equating general life-teaching vs formal academia. It's not convincing anyone who doesn't already agree and it's bad logic
- chapter 5 is basically a message of hiding your kid at home because you're scared of the dangerous world out there.

Here's the more important score card for me though: addressing the boogeymen.

Homeschooling has 3 big boogeymen that scare other people.

1) it's weird
PRO: This gets addressed early in the book

2) it's for religious nuts
PRO: Religion was addressed here in a personal and non-threatening way
CON: it reinforces the no prayer in school myth. Schools don't prohibit prayer; they just don't promote it or give it special status

3) kids do not get enough interaction with others their age
CON: This book provides next to nothing to combat the perceived isolation and lack of socialization. In a few places it even enforces the idea that you can hide your kid from the scary world and their scary peers.

As an introduction to the subject of homeschooling, this book is not bad but it has room for improvement.

This book was given to me for free at my request and I provided this voluntary review.

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2 people found this helpful

Great intro. Demystifies and removes excuses.

This is a really helpful little volume aimed at giving the potential homeschooling parent both vision and direction toward taking responsibility for their child's mind and heart. This author does a great job of reminding the parent that they have already been 'schooling' their child at home and then she continues to give great advice on first steps and potential pitfalls.

The narrator did a great job.

If you are utterly intolerant to the existence of Christianity you will likely relish the opportunity to leave this book a blisteringly negative review, otherwise you might find it helpful if you are concerned with the eternal soul of your child. The tone was not preachy by any means.

If you are in the market for this book, or if the title interests you (and why else would you be reading this review), pick up this audiobook and be encouraged.

I was given this free review copy audiobook at my request and have voluntarily left this review.

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Mixed marks for this assignment

Generally the book covers three major topics:

- why you might want to home-school,
- how to set up and run a home-school, and
- the short falls / issues / fears with home-school

There is some good information within here, just just hidden by some really strange structure. The book flicks from topic to topic, and mixes them throughout.It doesn't move through the three topics in a structured manner, but moves back and forth between them with no obvious rhyme or reason.

The book outlines the reasons that you might want to home-school in fair detail - issues with the current school system such as overcrowding, old resources or lack of specialization for slower or faster kids, or faith-based reasons.

It spends a tonne of time talking about the issues with public school and how it is failing, then two paragraphs later, in an attempt to show that private school is too expensive, talks up public schools. It seems to be contradicting itself at least a little here.

When describing how to set up the class it provides some resources to help the home-teacher and gives some guidelines on how to structure the class. It talks about the state requirements and how to meet them, and also suggests finding other home-school families to join with and share resources.

There are some strange choices like spending a chapter on parents and babies, talking about all the things parents do with them. That has nothing to do with homeschooling, as it is at an age well before schooling starts.

There are also little statements in there that grate, like suggesting that parents who send their kinds to schools get a "6 hour holiday every day". As if most parents aren't doing huge amounts of things, or working a career, into that time. It's not a holiday.

The is a chapter or two about 'Christian homeschooling' that just seems of compared to the rest of the book. It is full of Christian buzzwords and faith-based comments that are wholly missing from the rest of the book. It just makes this chapter feel awkward and almost pandering. It should have either been less full-on, or included across the whole book. Having it siloed into such intense sections makes them stand out - and not in a good way.

When talking about why you might not want to home-school it gives some reasons - uncertainty about teaching is a major one - and tries provide comfort and resources to combat the pitfalls.

There are painfully constructed sentences throughout that take away from the book, such as: 'The requirements for homeschooling kids will vary depending on the state and the country. Home-school kids in the United States are required to take standardized tests at certain points during their academic years in certain states, such as Pennsylvania.' That is just a painfully convoluted couple of sentences.

Overall it's not a bad resource but I would have liked to see a little more structure and clearly defined outline there.

Narration by Jon Turner is okay. It is stilted and doesn't flow well, although it picks up as the book get's further in, as he finds his feet. It is easy to follow, but it's not overly engaging.

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2 people found this helpful

Quick and light

A short book that lets people that encourages those who are considering homeschooling. The author starts off the book with the good point that those who may be uncomfortable teaching aren't trained have been teaching their children since they were born. The book is written towards the Christian in mind as there are several points throughout the chapters that expressly speak to that point but the general theme could apply to anyone.

The benefits, other than public schools have drugs and alcohol with the populace, are spoken of with statistics about those who go through homeschooling. The stats are not just for average Americans but looks at different racial make ups as well and hits on various stages such as SAT/ACT test scores, college graduation, etc.

The book doesn't get bogged down in detail so those who may want a lot more information may view this as a negative. It does address the benefits of co-ops to counteract concerns of socialization and even weaknesses in the parents in a particular subject. The author also has a few suggestions of particular programs or sites to get into phonics, math, and a few other subjects. However, no other resources are given or suggested.

The biggest flaw I have is that it didn't address the audience who may be choosing homeschooling at different stages or childhood. Just starting school to elementary to middle and high school are singled out with any differences or suggested places to look for. A few more resources such as Khan Academy or other good over all homeschooling resources would have been also nice.

A nice, quick read on a good subject. Final Grade - C+

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