By Amy Vickrey, MSE

As I finish my first year of homeschool with my 6-year-old, soon-to-be “First Grader,” I am looking over the last year at all we have accomplished, and I am amazed. Just an hour or two of work most days of the week has helped him learned to read, do simple addition and subtraction, and begin into the writing process when he wasn’t even writing his name when we started. I know that even more important than meeting these goals is keeping one big goal in mind: the goal to create in my son a LOVE of learning.

I want him to become a LIFELONG LEARNER!

What does this mean? I want him to love seeking out new information and new knowledge, to never stop growing and learning. To have the tools to seek out information he wants to know.

 

Choose to Be an Example to Follow
To create a life-long learner, I must first be a lifelong learner myself. Children learn through examples. Here are some resources about how and why to become a life-long learner, even as an adult:

Why You Should Strive to Be a Lifelong Learner
Continuing to educate yourself can help you be more successful on the job and in business.

Learning is Good for Your Health, Your Wallet, and Your Social Life
Learning keeps your mind and body healthier, helps you create better spending habits and earning potential, and helps you become a better socialized and able to socialize person.

How and Why to Become a Lifelong Learner
Lifelong learning develops leadership potential and helps unlock skills throughout life that are not developed in the younger years.

If you are reading this blog, you probably are or are wanting to be a lifelong learner already! As a lifelong learner myself, sometimes it is still difficult to get my child to see the bigger picture of continuing to learn and grow throughout life. So I work to equip my son with tools to help him reach this goal. These tools include:

1 – Encourage the Love of Reading
With the ability to read comes the ability to learn anything. In today’s society, I would add the ability to use a computer too. We are blessed with computers that can read to us and help us with the reading and learning process. A love of reading helps make this an enjoyable experience and a desire to reach out and learn more.

2 – Handle Mistakes as Opportunities to Learn
The simple truth is everyone makes mistakes. It’s how we react to those mistakes that define us. Learn from mistakes; learn together; show how you learn from your own mistakes and help your children learn from theirs. Natural consequences are so powerful, especially when children are young. It is so much more powerful to teach a child how they got an answer wrong than to just mark it wrong.

3 – Teach Skills on How to Find Answers
When my son asks me a question I don’t know the answer to (or sometimes I do), I show him how to look up the answer on the computer, in a book, through Google, and other resources. I let him see me asking questions about things I need to learn. How to find answers is a powerful tool. It goes along with reading and a love of reading. I may not know the answer, but I know how to find it, and how to know if my source is credible.

4 – Allow Choice in Learning
I think this is the essence of homeschooling. The ability to give children the ability to have a choice in what they are learning. At my son’s young age, this means I provide books, games, and other materials on topics he likes or might like, and I let him explore them in his free time. About the time he thinks he has exhausted the bookshelf, he finds something new to explore. We go to the library, and I let him talk to the librarian about subjects and topics he is interested in. We explore TV shows and documentaries together about topics he loves. I have learned more about dinosaurs in the last year than I thought possible. But it’s what he loves and he is learning too.

5 – Provide Time for Play
Play is such an important part of the learning process. It is when children take information and make it their own. It is when they learn to seek out answers and take chances. To read more about play check out my April blog, Learning Through Play.
 
6 – Teach Goal Setting
Setting educational goals together can be a powerful tool to get your child engaged in the learning process. Start with small goals and build to bigger goals. Maybe your goal is to write your child’s name or to identify the first letter of their name. Make the goal together, work on it together, and when you accomplish it, CELEBRATE! To learn more about goal setting and healthy habits, check out The Leader in Me, 7 Habits of Happy Kids!

7 – Make Time to Celebrate
Celebrate the successes, whether big or small! When my son first started out working on sight words, we celebrated with a trip to the ice cream shop anytime he accomplished his goal. Now he is reading almost anything he picks up! By celebrating, it helped to create excitement and enjoyment. This is an important part of the process.

I hope you enjoy the journey as much as I am!

For more information on lifelong learning, check out these links:
6 Lifelong Learning Skills
5 Steps to Developing a Lifelong Habit of Learning
10 Simple Ways to Engage in Lifelong Learning

We at SPED Homeschool also want to help you keep growing and learning. Make sure to visit our website for new articles; our YouTube channel for new videos; and our Facebook page and  support group for lots of interactive training and support so you can keep learning new ways to teach your struggling learner.

 

 


Did you know SPED Homeschool is 100% donor funded?

Please consider donating today