Learning at Home: A Mother's Guide To Homeschooling, Revised Edition

by Marty Layne

Marty Layne distills her 20 years of homeschooling experience into an easy-to-read, informative guide to homeschooling and parenting in general. Filled with practical suggestions and original ideas, this book can be read again and again.

Genres: Parenting

208 pages, Paperback

First published March 1, 1998

About the author

To answer the many questions I was asked in the 1980 and 90s about learning without schooling, I wrote a book. The last edition published 12 years ago in 2007 still resonates with those starting out living and learning with children, "Learning At Home: A Mother's Guide To Homeschooling, Newly Revised Edition".

As a young girl learning English as a second language I never thought that I would become an author. I loved to read and the town library was only two blocks form the apartment we lived in. It had one room dedicated to children's books and I read them all, many of them more than once. It was fun to revisit some of those titles when my children were older and read them some of the books I'd enjoyed as well as many, many others we discovered together.

Now that I have grandchildren, I have the pleasure of reading to them and am once again inspired to write. "The Happy Snow Friends Counting Book" is the latest.

Reviews

[Austen to Zafón]

I enjoyed reading this mother's perspective on what it's like to homeschool. While some of the references and resources listed are dated, the advice and thoughts are not. Layne reinforces my idea that children need time to just "mess about" with things, to be exposed to a variety of things and experiences, to play for long stretches. These are things that school leaves precious little time to do.

As the mother of a child who seems like he may be a "late" reader, I appreciated her chapter on reading, which talks about how important it is not too push too hard too early. All four of her kids were "late" readers, reading at 8.5, 9, 11, & 12 years old. She mentions the value of being a pre-reader, when the focus is oral memory, and how it might be a benefit to have a longer period of that, before reading changes a child's perceptions and focus.

Most of her chapters cover a particular learning area, such as reading, writing, or math, but I think this quote from the reading chapter encapsulates her home learning approach, "Biodiversity is now recognized to be important for our survival on this planet...I wonder if we need to think about the diversity of human perception, intelligence, creativity, and thinking as well. Are we eliminating human diversity when we force children to read before they have established their own unique ways of thinking and perceiving?" And in another chapter, she quotes a poem by Piet Hein:
T.T.T
When you feel how depressingly
slowly you climb,
it's well to remember that
Things Take Time

And finally, I think every homeschooling mom can appreciate her chapter on burn-out.

[Justine]

This was one of the first homeschooling books that really made sense to me. It is essentially Marty's story of what she did with her kids throughout the years and tackling different areas of learning. She never uses the word unschooling, but she definitely was following many principles of unschooling and free learning with her children. I found this book very helpful and inspirational, particularly the sections on reading, and Marty's differing experiences with letting her four children learn to read at their own pace and in their own way. Her observations of each child's very different skills and abilities and of her own strengths and weaknesses as a parent were also incredibly helpful to read, especially when I first started homeschooling my own children.

[Lisa]

I didn't really learn anything. Some resources are outdated. I'll look at some other books about learning at home.

[Heather]

a descriptive home school journey for one family - nice to get some reassurance on my decisions...

[Afnizar]

More of a compilation of anecdotes of a seasoned homeschooler, useful nevertheless but may not be satisfying or convincing if you are looking for a scientifically-backed information.