Homeschool Works

Your teen's brain changes and develops during early adolescence as dramatically as it did from birth-3 yrs of age. Learn how to work with (not against) those changes. Be the source of stability and wisdom your teen needs. 

Kayte and Debra talk about the risks and advantages during adolescence, a finite window of opportunity parents will not want to miss. 

Grief and loss can be overwhelming for a child and their grieving process is often different from adult grieving. Parents may not recognize the significance of a loss in a child's life that we may take in stride--the loss of a pet, changing churches, or moving, for example.

Bonnie Gonzalez, licensed counselor and Aim Academy Online psychology teacher, joins Debra and Kathryn to talk about how to recognize the signs of grief, how to keep homeschooling when you are grieving, and how to be attuned to your child's first experiences with loss and grief.

Play is essential to your preschooler's optimal cognitive development. Here's the confidence you need to give your little ones freedom and leisure!

What three ingredients are most important to help your preschoolers get ready to learn? You'll find out in this episode. Plus, we talk about lots of EASY ways for parents to support their preschoolers' cognitive growth and language acquisition during this CRITICAL time.

We're joined in the studio this week by Kayte's friend, Joanne, who also has preschoolers and is interested in learning more about homeschooling.

Online learning is a major reason homeschooling is growing rapidly in the U.S. and around the world. Here's an inside look at Aim Academy Online, a learning services provider founded by Debra Bell more than a decade ago. 

Kate and Debra discuss how online learning works and what parents should look for when choosing online classes for their kids.

Support your child's optimal learning with the right curriculum fit.  Let the research guide your decision-making. Here are three questions to ask yourself as you look at all your curriculum choices. 

We also talk about how text, images, headings, and white space should be organized on the page to support student learning.

In our final episode of Season 1, we talk about the six traits of great writing, how to evaluate your child's writing, and wrap up with a hot take on avoiding the pitfalls of teaching writing. From the research, folks, here's what you need to know.

And that's a wrap -- we'll release Season 2 spring of 2022.

Why should writing be a central component of your homeschool program? Because writing is a learning tool. Children learn what they write about. In this episode, we talk about the writing process--the key steps students should step through as they compose. And, we end with a discussion about why writing is a gift from God we should all treasure.

In this episode we talk about how to use the preschool years to get your child ready to read. Then we look at how to teach reading and what to do once your child is reading independently. We also give listeners tips for the middle school and high school years, and finish with strategies for helping a struggling reader. Thanks for listening!

Here are the high level goals for teaching a child how to read and what to do once they are reading independently. We start with an overview of the research into how children learn to read.