Homeschool teaches real communication

One of the finest benefits of homeschooling is that homeschool students learn to communicate verbally....Really communicate.

A quick look at the "communication" differences in government (public) school vs homeschool shows the main difference to be that government schools teach writing as the main form of communication and in homeschooling we inadvertently teach verbal communication as most important. We talk to each other frequently whenever there is a need. Thoughts are naturally drawn out and relational, not truncated on a piece of paper.

The reason government school kids have to write is because the teacher does not have the time to verbally communicated with each student to the extend to which they would need.

Homeschooling is much more natural. Homeschool students are not subjected to the artificiality of long periods when they are not allowed to talk or to having raise their hand to speak to express a need.

In our home my son talks A LOT more than he writes. Like many boys his age, he does not like to write. He does not like the mechanics, the slowness or the thought processes of writing.

In making life less stressful for both of us, he often does "verbal" reporting. He prefers to speak answers, whether short or long. Of course, sometimes I make him write a little, but more frequently I sit with him and we talk about the "answers".

The benefits of verbal communication are multi-faceted. A few off the top of my head are:

1. We enjoy each others' company and develop "relationship".
2. He has confidently learned how to express himself verbally and is a very "verbal male".
3. He does not have to give "short" answers to avoid writing.
4. He is encouraged to expand thinking and think deeper about his answers.
5. We can discuss what he says.
6. He gets immediate feedback on his thoughts.
7. I can assess whether or not he is interested in a subject and if it is worthy of further study.

Let's face it. If someone can organize and correctly express verbal information by comparing, contrasting, informing, etc., they can eventually also do it by writing.

Because he can answer verbally, he can think more and share what he thinks without the "consequence" of having to write. Speaking encourages expanded thinking while writing would discourage his thinking further.

Over and over again, people express their recognition of the verbal eloquence and ability of homeschool students. Most of these students can speak easily with people of all ages. Because they "converse", they usually "know what to say" and are confident in their ability to relate to other people.

Writing is an important skill, but is seriously less important than being able to relate to other human beings face to face.

unfortunately, government schools obviously cannot teach this way. Personally, when I was a young student in government school, I hated writing. I did learn to summarize. I wrote as little as possible.

It took me about twenty years to de-tox. When I discovered that all the day dreaming I always did in school was because I had a gifting for story telling, I finally learned to write. Now I love to write. I have written a novel, several short stories, magazine and newspaper articles, along with blogs and web pages.

I do understand that some students prefer or love writing and this should be encouraged. I am not addressing those students/parents. My purpose here is to encourage those whose children do not like to write. They can learn to write when they need to. That does not mean that they HAVE to do written science reports in the third grade. They do not HAVE to do written book reports in the fifth grade. So what if they can't?????

When their minds have matured a bit when they reach high school age, this is when the skills of writing need to be developed.

If a student knows how to organize thoughts and speak coherently, he/she already has more than half of the writing skills they need.

There is no reason to force very young students to write a lot. If it is their gift, then develop it but if it is their nemesis, shelve it.