A Canadian Homeschooler-to-be

(a) Scholar’s Choice, in Waterloo and online. I swear by Check and Double Check Phonics. Be a critical shopper — as in everything, 90% is commercial junk. But the other 10% is pure gold. And the C&DC cover everything you need to know in elementary school phonics/word analysis in four under-ten-dollar books. You have to be the teacher and work *with* the student, but they are good and clear.

(b) Moyer’s stores, allied to Scholar’s Choice, in most Canadian cities.

(c) Expensive in total, (although individual books are not too bad, but you get killed on postage) but worth every penny if you have a beginning reader — Ladybird *Key Word* reading series 1a and 1b to 6a and 6b (Grade levels K to 1.8 or so) — ignore the word-memorization suggested and teach phonics, but these books have great vocabulary development and running text with real sentences. — available from Penguin.uk online

(d) Used book stores. Try hard to get the old Copp-Clark Canadian Reading Development reading series; ask your friends aged over 40 and I bet half of them remember the reader “High Flight” with love. The earlier levels are out there and are excellent for grade levels 1.5 and up. If you can get the workbooks, they have good additional phonics work (not a complete program but good backup.) BTW, when you use out-of-print workbooks, write on photocopies; you’ll kick yourself if you destroy the original and want to re-teach to another student.

(e) Half.com and amazon.com zshops and biblionet online Look for Canadian series as above and you will find many shops in Canada so at least the price isn’t increased by 50%. There are a coupke of good shops in Alberta I often order from.

(f) Email me and I can arrange some photocopies at cost.

Good luck.

Thanks so much for the help. I actually have a memebership to Scholar’s Choice and have got a few work books, but I find you have to have a project in mind before you go there or else you get overwhelmed. There is a homeschool conference coming to a town near me, do you think it is worth attending even though I haven’t actually started homeschooling yet?
Are they a showcase of expensive programs? Thanks Jen

Can’t help you on conferences; I’m just a former teacher/private tutor trying to get some more homeschool clients. After my teaching career I kind of gag at conferences, but a homeschool conference should be different.

Even if it is a bunch of salespeople, I’d go anyway. You can handle the actual materials and books and get a real look at them, much better than flying blind with only a catalogue. Practice saying no to sales pressure — don’t buy at a sales booth unless it’s something you would have ordered anyway; remember it isn’t a bargain if you don’t need or use it! But I’d expect homeschoolers would also have interesting talks and workshops.

Yes, Scholar’s Choice can be overwhelming. So can all other educational salespeople. We suffer from an embarrassment of riches — kind of like going to a monster giant food warehouse for the first time and trying to just find good food for supper. You absolutely must get your goals and priorities straight in your mind. Remember that 90% and more of what you see is just brightly-cloured commercial flash intended to make quick profits; you have to dig for the real nutrition (Like finding the real cheddar cheese behind six aisles of chips and snacks and candies.) I do recommend the Check and Double Check Phonics, especially Books 1 and 2, from Scholar’s Choice; I either don’t recommend or strongly disrecommend a lot of other things they sell.

You can make up a top-notch reading program with the C&DC phonics workbooks, the Ladybird Key Words for Grades 1 to 1.8, the old Copp-Clark or any other good used reading program for mid grade 1 and up, good youth novels Grade 2-3 and up, any writing program of your choice (many are recommended on the Teaching Reading board here on LDOnline, or sift Scholar’s Choice with an eye to quality and depth rather than flash), and the rest of your materials handmade. For the first year or two when you need many small readers and basic phonics book and when workbooks are a help to the beginner needing guidance, you may spend a total of $100 to $200 for reading materials; for later years with intelligent choices you can keep the cost to $50 to $100 — hit that used book store. (of course, once you have a good reader and book addict, the used book store costs add up, but who’s complaining then?) Remember, Keep It Simple. Excessive materials just add confusion and most end up shelved.

Much the same applies to math; get a good program, one text and possibly a parallel workbook, for a basis (I’ve heard good things about Singapore math although I haven’t seen it) and if necessary maybe one other workbook OR computer drill for specific weaknesses; any more than this at one time and you’re wandering around from system to system in a swamp of confusion.