How Children Learn at Home
£11.41
Self-directed learning - This approachable and accessible book covers most aspects of informal and self-directed learning at home. The authors interviewed 26, mostly British, home-schooling families, and their outcomes go some way towards rebutting conventional arguments that education cannot exist beyond the structure of schools, curricula, and testing.Sections on the acquisition of literacy and numeracy are particularly well researched. The children concerned learn almost by accident through their everyday experiences, when they feel like it and are ready for it. Some of them receive input from their parents, while others learn with complete autonomy.The families and the authors describe how the majority of the children observed are actively engaged in their own learning and, therefore, establish their own learning agendas guided by what suits them best. The removal of competition, restrictive curricula and the time-wasting built into the school day create the space for children to develop their self-motivation and thereby enable them to learn more efficiently.As a retired teacher with thirty years experience, I find that this book provides me with evidence of the value of home schooling and throws out a powerful challenge to the skeptics.
Excellent- well researched & highly informative - This is a very interesting book about the theory of how children learn in the home environment by comparison to school. Based predominantly on academic research it is a very through and well referenced piece of work which makes the content that much more useful. If you re fed up with books that peddle dribble theories which have no scientific backing, then this book is for you. It s very well grounded in solid academic research. In terms of content, it can be a bit repetative if you re reading it as leisure reading, but as it seeks to be an authoratative piece of work i don t think it is excessively over done. The style if very accessable, and its easy for a reader to relate it to their own experiences both as a child and as a carer/parent, demonstrating how people (adults and children) learn outside the formal classroom.I would recommend this book to anyone who s contemplating homeschooling, and to anyone who s involved in the business of education (whether of children or adults) as it gives a new perspective on teaching.