English - Page 5

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How Younger Siblings Learn by Listening In

On Sunday Father S began his homily: “In Hamlet, it says, ‘To thine own self be true’.” Gemma-Rose dug me in the side and whispered loudly, her eyes wide with excitement, “Hamlet!” We are halfway through reading this Shakespeare play and Gemma-Rose couldn’t believe Father knew about Hamlet too. Later around the table, while we ate our Sunday cereal and crumpets, we had a good discussion: “Which character said, ‘To…
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A Little Unobtrusive Help with Reading

 Many years ago, I taught my first child Felicity to read so quickly and easily, I was sure I was a brilliant homeschooling mother. What was everyone else doing wrong? Teaching a child to read? Easy!  Or so I thought.  Then Duncan came along and the word ‘frustrated’ became part of my everyday vocabulary. He could remember the sounds of letters, but running them together to form words was a…
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Handwriting Matters or Maybe it Doesn’t

Some of my children have beautiful handwriting and some don’t.  “What are you going to do when you go to university? Your tutor won’t spend time trying to decipher your essays. If he can’t read them, you’ll fail.”  My eldest children went to university. “Handwritten assignments aren’t accepted, Mum. See, I didn’t need good handwriting after all!”  So I was wrong. Times have changed. Good typing skills are now more…
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Learning about Punctuation the Lewis Carroll Way

I never used to bother with the finer points of punctuation because I wasn’t sure how to use such devices as colons and semi-colons. For a long time, I didn’t even know their proper names. To me, they were two dots, or a dot and a comma. And I’m supposed to be an educated woman. But one day, help arrived in an unexpected way.  I started reading Lewis Carroll’s Alice in…
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Listening

  Gemma-Rose’s turn to read. My turn to listen. When I was an eleven-year-old student, our teacher got out her tape recorder and played us a current affairs radio program. It was a hot summer’s afternoon, late in the day, and I felt sleepy. I didn’t even try to concentrate on the program.  I spent the half hour I should have been listening, daydreaming instead. Apparently, almost all my fellow students did the same thing. And the teacher must…
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Wanting to Learn How to Spell

Gemma-Rose isn’t a defiant child so when she said to me, “You can’t make me learn anything I don’t want to learn,” I stopped and listened. We were talking about spelling. Did Gemma-Rose want me to enrol her in an online spelling program? “No thank you, Mum.” “Well, how will you learn how to spell?” “I’ll pick it up as I go along,” she answered confidently. “But wouldn’t it be…
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A Novel Writing Adventure

Imogen is sitting in the family room with her netbook balanced on the arm of the sofa. I look over her shoulder and notice she is writing a blog post…. another one. She always seems to be writing. The other girls also spend a lot of time tapping away on their computer keyboards. All my children love writing and I wonder how this came about. Did they see me sitting…
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Let’s Talk Maths

My girls have been learning maths in a formal way rather than as a consequence of life. But I have been thinking…  The girls used to use workbooks, the sort that cover one school year at a time. They filled them in with correct answers and moved from book to book. And they didn’t complain. It was interesting enough. It was just something that was expected and they did it.…
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Lunch with Charles Dickens

We are sitting around the table. It is lunch time and as we eat, someone starts a lively conversation. “Do you remember that strange old lady in Great Expectations?” “The one who sat in her wedding dress, day after day after day?” “Yes, Miss Haversham. She sat there with one shoe on and one shoe off… for years.” Gemma-Rose has forgotten why Miss Haversham sat by the decaying wedding feast…
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A Jane Austen Education

I was on my way to bed when I noticed the older girls’ bedroom light was still on. As I stood outside the door I could hear Imogen’s voice. It sounded like she was reading out loud. Pushing open the door, I saw both girls sprawled on their beds. Charlotte was listening enthralled as Imogen read from the book Pride and Prejudice. Both sisters were obviously having a wonderful time…
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A Passion for Writing

I love writing. It’s one of my passions. And all of my children love writing too. They observe me sitting at the computer with my head down, in a world of my own, tapping away. Then: “Hey! I’ve finished. Read this and let me know what you think.” I step back and the girls crowd in, eager to share what I have created. I watch their faces. “What do you…
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