“—but grant it, who in the world could get through all the pasting and cutting and general messing preparatory to the great lesson? No; the method of the books may be only second-best, but ready-made books must do for me. I have no time to make my own apparatus.”

 

I must own that the cutting and pasting was very clumsy, but the lesson served its purpose because it induced a good friend to education [Miss Miller] to have a delightful… box prepared for us, loose words, nice big type, two lines in a bag.” – Charlotte Mason Home Education Volume 1 p.217

I aspire to be Miss Miller… “a good friend to education.”

Back when my second child was age 6, ready for reading lessons, I scoured through Volume 1 looking for Charlotte’s method for teaching reading. With my first child, although I was attempting to do a Charlotte Mason Education, I had not had the time, resources, experience, or knowledge to teach reading in a CM way. For lack of not knowing what to do, I used a popular reading curriculum complete with phonics cards. When my second child was ready to read, my stomach turned at the thought of doing those monotonous cards again. I knew Charlotte had described a way to do reading lessons, but it was so jumbled up within her text. Because I was still learning CM philosophy, I didn’t have a clear vision for how to teach a child to read in a Living way. I didn’t have a grasp of the big picture, and I didn’t know what actually needed to be done in a daily lesson. I combed through the Volume and pulled her words together in a way that I could easily reference each day as I led my child through reading lessons. I found poetry and prose selections to use, did the “cutting and pasting”, and wrote sentences to go along with the words we were learning. The process of teaching this child to read was new, inviting, interesting and so enjoyable.

I’m making the lessons I wrote for my children available to CM users. My hope is that these reading lessons will aid you in teaching your child to read using Charlotte Mason’s philosophy and method. First Reading Lessons will take your child from their first reading steps to the time that they fly on their own into the world of books.

First Reading lessons:

Authentic Charlotte Mason reading lessons taken directly from the instructions Charlotte describes in Volume 1.

Uses literature suggested by Charlotte.

All the “apparatus” and “cutting and pasting” done for you.

Wooden letters will hopefully be available by this fall.

 

If you are interested, email Lisa to add your name to the contact list when the First Reading Lessons are ready for purchase.

Lisa Osika  lisagardener@abbnebraska.com