| Additional Benefits of Teachers Property, and thoughts on Homeschooling… |
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| As a Language Arts teacher, I often wondered if kids were really reading those books I was assigning. I thought back to my school days when I had the ultimate skill of being able to complete a wonderful book report just from reading the back of the book, the table of contents, the first page and the last page of the book. And that was before the internet! |
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| I wanted to develop a way to check whether the kids were truly reading their assignments. I also needed my assessment tool to be quick and easy to grade. Additionally, I was thinking I could use my assessment to check for the student’s reading comprehension of the text in at least a surface level. I began writing multiple choice questions covering the specific reading assignments I was giving to the students. |
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| After several years of doing this, my husband actually realized the enormous quantity of work that I had completed. I had amassed a bank of hundreds of questions relating to many popular titles in children’s literature. I also received positive feedback from my colleagues as they eagerly snapped up copies of my questions and answers to incorporate into their classrooms. |
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| I thought that perhaps other teachers, homeschoolers and parents would also benefit from such a valuable resource. There is minimal work involved for anyone using my quiz materials. The reading assignments are listed clearly for the students. Teachers, homeschoolers and parents have easy access to quiz questions relating to each reading assignment. They come complete with answer keys. Each question has a choice of four possible answers. You can customize your quizzes to fit your needs and desires, enough to challenge any homeschooler. |
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| Homeschooling or homeschool (also called home education or home learning) is the education of children at home, typically by parents but sometimes by tutors, rather than in a public or private school. Although prior to the introduction of compulsory school attendance laws, most childhood education occurred within the family or community, homeschooling in the modern sense is an alternative in developed countries to formal education. |
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| In many places homeschooling is a legal option for parents who wish to provide their children with a different learning environment than exists in nearby schools. While academic and religious reasons dominate the motivations for homeschooling, parents cite numerous other reasons ranging from a dissatisfaction with the schools in their area to the desire for better academic test results. It is also an alternative for families living in isolated rural locations and those who choose, for practical or personal reasons, not to have their children attend school. |
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| Homeschooling may also refer to instruction in the home under the supervision of correspondence schools or umbrella schools. In some places, an approved curriculum is legally required if children are to be home-schooled. |
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| I have organized the available titles by grade level. I am a student of differentiated instruction. Therefore, each book list is differentiated, meaning there is a range of reading levels within each grade level. The grade level designation is merely a guide to help educators and parents find appropriate texts for their students. |
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| - Kathleen Bertolini |