I highly recommend The Mislabeled Child as a resource to keep handy. If you click on the lick below to order a copy, Amazon will send a small portion of the price to help defray the expenses of this website and newsletter. Thank you.

The Big WHAT NOW Book of Learning Styles by Carol Barnier

Emerald, 2009. ISBN: 1978-193209660-6.

Different children learn differently. Many authors have described these differences and shown us how to figure out our children’s learning styles. But homeschoolers always want to know, “How do I apply this theory to my homeschool? What now?” In her latest book, The Big WHAT NOW Book of Learning Styles, Carol Barnier provides hundreds of suggestions for multi-sensory instruction that are easy and fun. As always, Carol’s practical advice is sprinkled with good sense and humor. Her goal is “to simplify the process, and to put delight and fun back into learning.”

As Carol points out in Chapter One, “Why Another Book on Learning Styles?”, the business of labeling children by learning style can cause problems. It can confuse us. Many books, Carol says, “are long on diagnosis and short on prescription.” Some give prescriptions that are too broad to be useful. A diagnosis is not helpful, Carol says, if it leads us only to “exchange a new boxed-in idea of how this child should learn for the old boxed-in idea we just abandoned.” Our assumptions about how our children learn best can keep us from exploring new methods that might help. For example, Carol explains that because her son couldn’t keep to a beat in music, she was surprised to see he loved rhythm and it helped him remember. She encourages parents to experiment with different approaches.

Chapters Two through Four lay the foundation of Carol’s book. She describes the frustration of children and parents who have not found the keys to how each child learns. Rather than letting the child think he or she is defective, she says we need to keep trying “keys”—exploring new techniques—until we see what works and is fun for this child. Parents need to “develop the ability to take any learning activity and find ways to incorporate many different teaching approaches.”

Sound daunting and time-consuming? Carol explains that spending time finding the strategy that helps your child learn is much less time-consuming that spending months on methods that don’t work. This emphasis on finding the right methods also takes the burden off the child: it’s not the child who is defective, it’s just the wrong teaching approach for this child. In Chapter Four, “How To Use This Book,” Carol completes her foundation by stressing that parents must keep trying a variety of ways to address all learning styles, not squeezing their child into one category. By this she doesn’t mean infinite amounts of work for the parents, but an open-minded approach to different multi-sensory methods that will make learning more fun.

After the four foundation chapters, we move to the bulk of the book. Carol breaks her chapters by subject, totaling 128 pages crammed full of easy-to-do, engaging ideas for teaching, including many ideas good for older students:

• Spelling
• Writing (both handwriting and composition)
• Reading
• Math
• History
• Geography
• Science
• Reviewing material in any subject

The final chapter, “Things Your Children Wish You Knew About How They Learn,” is one of my favorites. It covers many common, but incorrect assumptions parents and teachers make about how our children learn. For example, it reminds us not to confuse slow with stupid, and to remember that some students must move to learn. The chapter provides basic tips for working with children with memory and processing problems, and reminds us to accept creative answers from our children.

Carol concludes by showing us how and why to praise our children’s work more than we criticize it. She reminds parents that we must believe in our children, or they won’t believe in themselves. Some friends are practical, some are wise, and some are funny. Carol Barnier is all three. I think you will find this a helpful book.

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Heads Up Helping! Teaching Tips and Techniques for Working With ADD, ADHD, and Other Children with Challenges by Melinda L. Boring.

Melinda L. Boring, homeschooling mother of three and speech pathologist, has written a book filled with practical advice for teaching struggling learners, written in a style that is clear and easy to read. Her years of experience raising two special needs children and her positive approach make this book a help to homeschooling parents.

She begins with her own story: “When I gave birth to my first child, Joshua, I felt I had prepared as much as I possibly could in order to be a good mom." But she and her husband Scott discovered that their bright, active, inattentive son required much more than they expected: more time, more energy, and more creative thinking. In chapter one, she quickly traces their family’s story through the birth of Josh’s two sisters, her initial suspicions that Josh had an auditory processing problem, and their struggles helping Josh deal with the stimulation of group activities. In chapters two and three, Melinda explains her initial resistance to homeschooling, how she began, and their efforts to understand Josh’s difficulties.

The bulk of the book is organized by learning problem: auditory distractibility, visual distractibility, sensory issues, social skills, daydreaming, fidgeting, and many more. Each chapter addresses one difficulty, beginning with anecdotes from her family life illustrating the problem. After a clear, brief explanation of the difficulty and any technical terms she uses, she gives many practical tips for working with or around the problem.

Melinda’s approach is one of the book’s great assets. She appreciates her children’s strengths and she does not give up. She is creative about trying different solutions and is honest about what did not work in their family. Particularly helpful is her tendency to consider her own learning style in contrast to her children’s, because she demonstrates the thoughtful, observant approach all parents should take in teaching their children. She combines these traits with a good sense of humor.

How To Get Your Child Off the Refrigerator and On To Learning: Homeschooling Highly Distractible, ADHD, or Just Plain Fidgety Kids by Carol Barnier

When I first saw this title, I said, “Well, my child’s not hyperactive,” and thought the book wasn’t for me. I wish I’d seen the subtitle. Now that I’ve read the book, I only wish she’d written it sooner. Carol Barnier has written a helpful book for anyone with a child who struggles to stay focused on schoolwork. It is well laid out, easy to read, and includes many reproducible games. While written for homeschoolers, much of the book would help parents with children in school, working on homework and remedial work at home. Her book not only offers many practical tips, but also encourages her readers, giving a wise perspective on helping and enjoying what she calls “your spirited child.”

The most striking feature of How to Get Your Child Off the Refrigerator is its wealth of practical advice in chapters two through eight. Chapter two advises parents how to create a good environment for learning in the home. Chapter three shows how to put movement into your homeschool, to improve listening, aid memory, and make lessons fun. Chapters four through six tell how to easy it is to make simple, fun games for learning. (Those chapters are worth the price of the book for anyone with a child in the elementary grades.) Chapter seven suggests specific ideas for teaching math, writing, and history, while chapter eight gives tips on going places: field trips, church, Aunt Martha’s house, or anywhere in the car with siblings.

These suggestions are very helpful, but what makes this book even more valuable is the encouraging and wise approach of the author. Barnier begins with a healthy view of diagnoses, commonly called “labels.” She feels labels explain the clear differences between her child and other children, which keeps him from thinking of himself as weird or stupid, and crystallizing his difficulties. She advises how we can keep labels from becoming a problem.

Homeschooling the Challenging Child by Christine Field

In Homeschooling the Challenging Child, Christine Field provides a useful guide for parents of children with learning or attention difficulties, strong wills, and other personality traits that make homeschooling harder. Field, a trial lawyer turned homeschooling mom who homeschools her four very different children in Wheaton, Illinois, wrote a well-organized and clear book.

After beginning with a few examples of the varied needs of our challenging children, Field discusses the advantages of homeschooling: building the child’s confidence, and providing the opportunity to customize teaching style, learning environment, and content to suit the child’s needs and gifts. She clearly explains terms, types of learning disabilities, the laws concerning learning disabilities, and kinds of attention deficit disorders. Her chapter on attention disorders includes cultural factors, diagnosis, and “solutions:” treatments and adaptations. In chapters five and six, she considers various ways of categorizing personalities and learning styles, because personality and learning style clashes can make homeschooling a challenge. After some helpful thoughts and suggestions on discipline, comes chapter 8, Field’s look at caring for self, siblings, and marriage while homeschooling. Chapter 9 is a good introduction to planning a homeschool program, while her last chapter addresses getting help from professionals. She concludes with a lengthy and valuable discussion of resources.

Field’s tone is encouraging, practical, and down-to-earth. She admits struggles and failings. Field surveyed many homeschooling families, whose stories and quotations enrich the book with a variety of challenges and solutions. She also frequently quotes the Bible, which she finds a source of strength in this difficult task. A regular theme of the book is that God enables parents who rely on him to cope and care, despite their frustrations.

Homeschooling the Challenging Child is a helpful and encouraging resource for those starting or continuing to homeschool a child with learning or attention difficulties. The clarity and organization with which she defines terms, explains disabilities and disorders is her greatest strength. Her practical suggestions and resources on working with public school personnel, caring for “Mom, Marriage, and Siblings,” planning a program, and getting professional help make this book one worth owning.

Christine M. Field, Homeschooling the Challenging Child. Broadman and Holman, 2005. ISBN 0805430784.

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