The Reading-Writing Connection

A frequent lament of homeschooling parents is, "How will I find the time to teach everything that I need!"  

The trick is to combine subjects. Government and private schools compartmentalize learning, but that isn't the way we learn best in real life and homeschoolers do not have to follow that pattern. (Please don't!)  Learning about one topic intersects and overlaps so many other topics and this enables learners to make connections.

Reading and writing is one area that can be combined and can reinforce each other.  When children are young and just learning their sounds and letters, the emphasis will need to be on learning to read, but at the same time, encouraging them to write the words they are sounding out will reinforce the phonics they are learning.  

As their skills develop, continuing to write out new words will embed correct spelling in their minds.  Learning to spell is multi-sensory; it is visual as the student sees and pays attention to the word and the letters that make it up.  It is auditory, as the student spells it aloud.  It is tactile, as the student writes it down.  

Copywork, a key element of a Charlotte Mason-styled education, combines reading and writing.  A child copies a sentence or a paragraph, whatever is appropriate for their age, and reads it as they write it, and they read it after they write it.  For younger children, I recommend the Draw, Write, Now series.  Each set of books features a different theme and each book features a different topic.  It contains copywork (writing and reading) as well as an art lesson!  That's combining THREE "subjects."

This article from Education Week addresses the need for reading and writing to be paired.  This is one way a busy homeschool mom can work multiple subjects in to her day.  I love an article that does more than present a problem and this one offers a few activities to help with building the reading-writing connection.

You'll notice a couple of terms that you may not be familiar with in the article, so let me help you out.

"Balanced Literacy" - a terrible and failing system of teaching children to read by looking at pictures and guessing.  This system has been perpetrated on school children for decades with disastrous results!

"The Science of Reading" - Although they try to make this sound like a new approach, it most certainly is not.  It is based on phonics, a method proven to produce strong readers.

It does take some time to learn phonics if you have never learned it yourself and have never taught it.  It will take time to learn how to blend reading and writing instruction, but that's the nature of homeschooling.  When you have taken on the responsibility (and delight) of teaching your own children it does require some input of your time, but it will pay off HUGE for you and your children.