College Planning: Teaching Your Homeschool Student Good Listening StrategiesBy Mimi RothschildWhen you homeschool, teaching your child how to develop effective listening strategies is one of the first things that you should focus on. Though every parent has problems getting their children to listen now and then, you need to teach your child that listening is essential during homeschool sessions. Just telling your homeschool student is usually not enough. You need to help her develop ways of listening for her to retain the information that she is hearing and remember more of what she is learning. You can even have a special homeschool "class" that focuses entirely on learning how to listen effectively. There are several methods you can teach your homeschool student that will help her learn the art of listening effectively. This will help her not only through her homeschool years, but also when she goes on to college.
First of all, ask your homeschool student why she needs to listen. This may sound like a simple question, but answering this question will help her to realize how important listening is. It is important not just in homeschool but also in every day life. Teach her how to maintain eye contact with the speaker when she is listening. This may elicit some laughter at first when she is maintaining eye contact with you while trying to listen. Eventually, though, she will develop the habit and it will come naturally. Teach your homeschool student to not only listen to the speaker, but also to watch for other non-verbal clues such as body language and tone of voice. Learning to listen to the whole person will not only help your homeschool student to remember more, but it will also help her to develop her intuition. Teach your homeschool student how to tune out other noises by stopping repeatedly while speaking to ask her what she was hearing. If she says she is hearing other things, help her to practice focusing on only listening to the speaker.
During each homeschool session, after you have talked to your child about a subject, ask her to summarize what she has heard out loud. Have her tell you what she thinks were the important key phrases and words that she heard. Then, ask her to relate what she has heard to what she already knows. These types of practices during your homeschool sessions will teach your child valuable listening habits that will go beyond homeschool to college and her career.
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Mimi Rothschild is a homeschooling parent, children's rights activist, author, and Founder and C.E.O. of online education company Learning by Grace, Inc. Rothschild and her husband of twenty-eight years reside in suburban Philadelphia with their eight children.
Feeling that “our current system of education has broken its promise,” Rothschild co-founded Learning By Grace, Inc. to provide families with Internet-based multimedia education to PreK-12 children all over the world.
In addition to her twenty years of experience as a homeschool mother, Rothschild has written a number of books dealing with education published by McGraw Hill and others. Her Home Education Websites Blog consists of helpful online content and activities for Christian homeschooling families.
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