Home School Learning:
How Does Your Child Learn and Remember Information Best?

As home schoolers, we naturally want to know about how home school learning takes place for our child. Is she remembering things? Is she able to understand the concepts?

You may wonder why home school learning is such an important topic to address now. After all, my kids will learn somehow, won’t they?

They will learn, but will they remember it?

Home schoo learning actually isn’t just about learning. It is also about remembering and applying what you’ve learned. If you have been home schooling for very long, you’ve probably run into that brick wall of frustration, tears (yours and theirs), and blank looks that have made you wonder if there wasn’t a better way to help your children learn and retain concepts and information.

You might think that this question refers only to identifying the learning style of your child. While I think learning styles are extremely important to keep in mind, I think there are other important factors about how people learn and remember, too.

The assumptions of how children learn and remember are really key to understanding the very core of what a home school learning is about, and what the various curricula are offering to you and your child. That's why a hands-on home school curriculum will approach the subject very differently than a step-by-step incremental approach.

Fortunately, you don't need a master's degree in education to figure out what a curriculum's philosophy of education is and how it applies to you. I have developed a list of some educational statements to help in identifying underlying approaches to home school learning. Simply look over the following partial list of these statements to become more aware of what the underlying philosophy of learning is of the home school curriculum you are interested in.

Every home school curriculum out there in home school curriculum land completes this sentence in some way: Your child will learn better with our home school curriculum or material than with another curriculum because…

• We have many games that entertain and involve students in the material.
• We help connect many facts and themes together in a logical way.
• We tailor the learning process to various learning styles.
• We capture your child’s heart and emotions by the literature we select.
• We build upon a child’s natural curiosity.
• We challenge and inspire a child to pursue excellence.
• We help instill confidence as your child discovers he can learn for himself anything he wants to know.
• We boost the desire to learn by making our materials fun and enjoyable.
• We employ the spiral method so that each time a topic is covered the student will understand at a deeper level.
• We use the mastery method so that a student doesn’t move on until he really understands the material.

Which ones of these resonate with you? Which do you think fit your child best? Which ones fit the kind of home school learning you want to offer your child? Give this some thought and see how your answers compare to the curriculum you are interested in buying. This way, before you become enticed by some well-written ad copy insisting this is the best home school curriculum, ask yourself if you agree that their way of learning is the most effective way to learn over the long haul.

If you don't know which method of learning your child does best with, have him take a learning style assesment as a start. In addition, try putting yourself in his shoes -- which would you rather learn with? It may not be the same, but it will still be insightful to which you’d rather teach. Take ten to twenty minutes after the kids are in bed to write out your answers. See how your answers line up with that “best” home school curriculum. Taking time to do this will be time well spent.

I look forward to elaborating more on this as I’m able. I’m still home schooling four kids myself, though, so time is pretty limited. Use our Contact Us page to let me know if you are interested in learning more or if this has been helpful to you.

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