[Fiji Hill]

This article is an eye-opener. Although it dates from 2008, it remains timely.

[JRandomFreeper]

The greatest gift ever given to me, besides salvation, was my mother teaching me to read at age 4.

Thanks, mom.

/johnny

[mmercier]

Those who have children should give them a copy of “Websters Encyclopedic Unabridged Dictionary of the English Language” and a copy of the Holy Bible.

Neither of my copies appear to have ISBN numbers on them, but they are easily available.

Books and reading are the key that turn civilization and understanding. The Bible and the dictionary are perquisites to understanding the rest of what manifests.

Books will matter more when the lights go off.

[Pure Country]

Our homeschooled daughter entered college at the age of 16 and had an eye-opener the first full day of lecture classes. She came home and shared with us that, “They just stand up there and tell you what you need to know! They just tell you!” She had never taken part in a lecture class and was used to doing all her own learning via books. She was dumbfounded to say the least. We just laughed at her.

[Cold Heart]

Going to be some good sales on books as all the book stores start closing down. Get em while you can.

[backwoods-engineer]

Good article. I have two homeschool kids: the youngest (daughter) loves to read (and write), and the oldest (my son) does not like to read. I read to my son more than my daughter, although I read to both quite a lot. My son does have dyslexia, but so does my daughter, to a lesser degree. Son is 18 now. He will read when he has to (car repair manuals), and has good reading comprehension, but just doesn't like to read.

Any ideas? Do you think he will read more when he gets older? He spends a lot of time chasing girls and cars (well, one particular of each) these days.

[elisabeth]

I agree that learning to read and then reading for enjoyment and learning is the most essential component to an education.

Now that my daughter is in kindergarten, the thing I miss most is the hours we used to sit and read together.

On a different topic, I wish there was some research on homeschoolers that was NOT done by Brian Ray. I feel like it is not totally impartial when a big homeschool proponent seems to provide 90% of the research on the topic.

[TASMANIANRED]

I figured out when I was about 4 1/2...if you can read...all information is available to you.