BJU Press Blog

distance learning

Encouraging Silent Reading

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encouraging silent reading
We are thrilled to announce that Reading 2, a new Distance Learning course taught by Mrs. Walker, is now available! Mrs. Walker has also recorded a few online support videos to give you tips on guiding your child’s reading. Find out what she has to say about silent reading in the videos below.

Why Is Silent Reading Important?

A primary focus of your child’s elementary homeschool education needs to be his ability to read silently. Reading silently is something that all of us do every single day. Imagine how tedious it would be if we were required to read every product tag, highway sign, blog post, and book out loud! But what is the value in teaching your child to read silently? Why is it worth it for him to learn it?

Practicing silent reading skills will enhance your child’s speed, comprehension, and focus in reading. It will activate his imagination and allow him to visualize what he is reading in his own mind. Reading silently will also enable him to engage with what he’s reading. If he has engaged with the content, he will be better able to discerning the author’s level of skill in writing and to discover the author’s intended message. Then he can ask meaningful questions and work to understand the material at a depth he can discuss with you instead of merely repeating back to you what he has read. Finally, reading silently will clear away distractions for your student and help him fully focus on what he’s reading. The more he is able to focus, the more he will get out of what he reads, and the more obvious the applications for his life will be.

In an age when the volume of information is constantly increasing, your child needs to be able to fully understand the content in front of him so that he can evaluate it from a biblical worldview. Training your child to read silently will empower him to work through the large amounts of information he encounters on a daily basis.

What Is Sustained Silent Reading?

Sustained silent reading involves giving your student large blocks of time to dedicate to reading silently. Scheduling times of the day for your child to do nothing but read will clear away the distractions and help your child engage with the content in a meaningful way. Sustained silent reading will also lengthen your child’s attention span, which will enable him to process large amounts of text into applicable truths for his life.

So how can you get your child ready for sustained silent reading? First, be intentional with what you put in front of him. Give him a selection to read that he will find both easy to understand and interesting. Also, make sure you’re available to help him with any difficult words and answer any questions he has. You can also include topics in the selection that cater to your child’s specific interests. Maybe he has specific genres he prefers or certain topics he likes to explore. Giving him things to read in those areas will encourage him to learn more about the things he already loves. Finally, you could set aside a designated spot in your home for him to read, such as a reading nook or a special chair. This way, your child will always know that any reading done there will be both peaceful and focused.

While advertisements and social media typically give us shorter messages, your child can definitely expect to encounter larger amounts of writing in everyday life. Creating long periods of time for your student to read silently will enable him to handle and process larger chunks of information.

How Do You Assess It?

Every skill your child is learning should be measured so that you know how he is growing. But silent reading can be a difficult skill to measure. So how can you evaluate it?

BJU Press Homeschool has provided numerous tools for assessing how well your student is doing with silent reading. Each worksheet contains several components to help you get a feel for your child’s strengths and weaknesses in reading. They provide a goal for your child’s reading—which will help him read both proactively and reactively. The worksheets contain a series of comprehensive questions to make sure your child is thoroughly understanding what he reads. Finally, the worksheets will build up to more difficult questions to stretch your student’s critical-thinking skills, appropriate to his reading level. The ability to measure where your child is with reading silently will help determine where your student needs to grow and encourage him in areas where he already excels.

Hopefully these videos have made it clear why silent reading is such an important practice for your student! And be sure to check out the new Reading 2 course and its exciting amusement park theme. If you purchase the online course, you will have access to it immediately; if you choose DVDs, you can expect your order to ship by August 1. Happy reading!

• • • • •

Matt recently graduated with an MA in communication studies and currently works as a freelance writer. He attributes the wild variety in his current opportunities to the exploration his parents gave him through the homeschooling experience. He enjoys theater, the gym, and choral music and will rarely say no to a cold glass of sweet tea.

Cooking with the Distance Learning Teachers

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cooking tips and recipes
I don’t know about you, but I love to cook. I love learning how different foods work together and experimenting on the fly. In fact, many of my dinners go from simple three-ingredient meals that should take maybe an hour to massive productions that take two hours or more to complete. With hungry children and hungry spouses, that’s probably not an option for you. But even I have a few meals that I turn to when I need an easy meal that tastes good and doesn’t require a lot of thinking. Everybody should have a go-to meal or cooking tip to rely on for those extra-hectic days. So I reached out to our Distance Learning teachers to find out some of their favorite easy cooking tips and recipes.

Tip from Mr. Matesevac

Mr. Matesevac recommends cooking meats “low and slow.” Chicken, beef, and pork are all much tenderer and juicier if cooked at a lower temperature for longer periods of time. That’s why a slow cooker is an excellent tool for cooking meat. If you’re planning on having chicken for dinner, why not throw it in the crockpot in the morning with some seasonings and let it go all day? You get great results without much effort.

Mrs. Overly’s Slow-Cooker Roast

This four-ingredient recipe may take longer, but it takes very little thought. Mrs. Overly buys a roast or two whenever they are on sale for a good price.

Ingredients

Roast, 3–4 lb (round roast, sirloin tip roast, or chuck roast)

Package dry onion soup

1 can cream of mushroom soup

1 can water

This is the easiest, and it makes its own gravy. Depending on your family size, you will have leftovers for the next day.

Directions

  1. Place roast in slow cooker.
  2. Sprinkle dry onion soup over top.
  3. Spread cream of mushroom soup over roast.
  4. Fill the cream of mushroom soup can with water and pour over roast.
  5. Slow cook 5–6 hours on high or 8 hours on low.

If you have plenty of leftover meat and gravy, here’s a simple vegetable beef soup you can make for the next day in the same crock pot:

  1. Shred the remaining beef.
  2. Add a couple of chopped potatoes, 1 can diced tomatoes, chopped onion, and chopped celery.
  3. Mix in 2 cups beef broth.
  4. Add seasonings—oregano, basil, bay leaf, or any of your favorite seasonings.
  5. Slow cook on low until the vegetables are soft.
  6. Add 1 can corn.
  7. Add 1 can green beans.
  8. Heat through and serve.

Mrs. Gillenwater’s Venison Gravy

Mrs. Gillenwater loves biscuits and gravy—and she especially loves making gravy at home with venison.

Ingredients

½ to 1 lb venison

½ cup flour

3 cups milk

3 cups water

your favorite biscuit recipe

Directions

  1. Brown venison.
  2. Coat meat with flour.
  3. Alternate adding milk and water until it is as thick as you want it. Use less milk and water if you want thicker gravy.
  4. Make your favorite recipe for biscuits.
  5. Enjoy!

Tip from Mrs. Jarrell

Mrs. Jarrell just might be a cooking genius. She recommends cooking several pounds of hamburger crumbles and pulled chicken 3–4 times a year. Then she freezes it in portion sizes for use later. Imagine how much time and mess that saves when you’re ready to cook!

Mrs. Jarrell’s Crockpot Squash Casserole

Ingredients

1½ cup chopped onion (optional)

3½ cups cut-up yellow squash (frozen)

4 oz (½ brick) cream cheese

½ bag stuffing mix or a sleeve of crackers

1–2 cups hamburger crumbles

Directions

  1. Add onions, squash, and cream cheese to crockpot. Make sure that the squash is frozen, as fresh squash will have a different consistency.
  2. Cook in crockpot on high for 4 hours.
  3. If hamburger crumbles are frozen, let them thaw in the refrigerator.
  4. A few minutes before serving, stir in hamburger.
  5. Slowly add stuffing mix or crackers. It takes a few moments to absorb the liquid, so add a little at a time to avoid making the casserole too dry.

Mrs. Rulapaugh’s Spanish Paella

Ingredients

Mrs. Rulapaugh, who is our new K5 Math teacher, grew up in Spain, so making Spanish paella reminds her of her former home. Cooking international foods may seem intimidating, but this one-pan meal is  a cinch to prepare!

2 cups rice

4–6 chicken pieces

1½ tsp salt or to taste

olive oil

turmeric

½ lemon or 2 tbsp lemon juice

1 green pepper, chopped

1 small can pimientos (optional—for garnish)

seafood (optional)

1 medium onion, chopped

5 cups water

Directions

  1. Cover frying pan or paellera with a thin layer of olive oil.
  2. Fry chicken, onion, green pepper, and seafood.
  3. Once chicken is done, add rice and water.
  4. Sprinkle with salt and add lemon juice and juice from pimientos, if desired.
  5. Cook rice at a boil. Add water as needed until rice is fully cooked.
  6. Garnish with pimientos, if desired.
  7. Let paella sit a few minutes, and then enjoy!

I hope these tips and recipes inspire you as they’ve inspired me! Let us know how yours turns out if you try it, or share one of your own favorite easy recipes in the comments below.

Introducing Our New 2019 Homeschool Catalog

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2019 homeschool catalog
Our 2019 homeschool catalog is hot off the press and will show up soon in your mailbox! We brought back the Homeschool in Action Photo Challenge and had twice as many participants this year as last. The competition was close, with so many incredible pictures of your homeschool experiences. We included as many pictures as we could in the catalog, but here are the winners.

New Distance Learning Courses

As a homeschool dad, I’m thrilled to see how the self-paced video courses enable my daughters to take ownership of the learning. My wife and I still have final say over the activities and the grades, but with a flexible roadmap, our fourth grader and second grader can learn on their own and at their own pace. Plus, our four-year-old is enjoying the K4 videos with Mrs. Lawson, Mrs. Liston, and all their puppet friends. She gets exposed to important concepts in a fun way that will help her when my wife starts to teach her how to read in K5.

This year BJU Press is rolling out five new Distance Learning courses. You can see sample lessons for each course on YouTube.

K5 Math

Children learn about math through experience with Mrs. Rulapaugh. Through the farm family and their pet mouse, your child will see how math can be used to help in meaningful ways. This 180-day course introduces children to simple math concepts through hands-on activities and engaging on-screen demonstrations for visual learners.

Reading 2

This amusement park theme of the course keeps your children eagerly anticipating the next story. Mrs. Walker encourages children to think deeply by asking higher-order thinking questions. She also continues to build their phonics and vocabulary skills. They will love reading the lessons in this 180-day course.

English 2

Mrs. Jarrell invites children to learn grammar concepts and apply them to their writing. Children will love the special segments she uses to enhance learning. In the “Super Marks” segment, super punctuation marks will dispel confusing communication. This is a 180-day course.

Physics

Physics is only available through Distance Learning Online. Since physics can be an especially challenging course, Mr. Harmon offers optional tutorials on particularly difficult physics problems that students will encounter. Distance Learning Online is the best way to keep the optional format of these tutorials organized. This 180-day course will challenge your twelfth grader’s science and math skills and prepare him or her for college-level study.

Economics

In this capstone heritage studies course, Mrs. Bullock walks students through the fundamentals of economics. Mrs. Bullock suggests you do this 90-day course in the spring of the senior year as a follow-up to the American government 90-day course.

New Online Testing Option

Now you can take the Iowa Assessments™ Form E achievement test from the comfort of your own home! BJU Press Testing & Evaluation is offering faster results with fewer requirements for Grades 3–12. By testing online, you get

  • testing results in ten days,
  • no shipping costs,
  • year-round testing,
  • and an approved test administrator provided by Testing & Evaluation.

Learn more about this option. 

Accepting Homeschool Help: Easier Than You Thought

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accepting homeschool help
I never enjoy accepting help, particularly homeschool help. I’ve always had a very independent personality. In fact, whenever my grandma talks about me as a child, she always talks about one thing—how self-sufficient I was, even as a toddler. And I never really grew out of it. Even now, I hesitate to pick up the phone to ask a friend to watch the kids. And if someone asks me how homeschooling is going, the answer is often an enthusiastic “Great!” even if I cried five times the day before.

Homeschooling Is Hard

But the Lord is slowly working to cut away at that thick, hard shell of pride that has enveloped me. He’s used my circumstances to show me how weak I really am and how much I do need help. One of the circumstances that He has used is homeschooling.

When I first started homeschooling, I had no idea how hard it was going to be. I was a homeschool grad, and my parents made it look pretty easy. But I realize now that there were so many things that I didn’t see as a child. I never saw the late night grading marathons or planning sessions, the early morning prep-work, the constant challenge of balancing homeschooling with the rest of life. I started wishing that my whole kitchen had a self-clean feature. It didn’t take me long to realize that homeschooling is hard. Really hard.

Not Going It Alone

Thankfully, that first year, my husband had the foresight to know that I couldn’t do it all alone. I was going to need to accept some homeschool help whether or not I wanted to admit it. He encouraged me to include a few BJU Press Distance learning courses alongside the textbook subject kits that we ordered. Initially, we used Bible 2, English 2, and Science 2—only three courses, but what a difference they made!

I decided that year that I loved BJU Press Distance Learning courses. Here’s why:

  • They held my daughter’s attention. In fact, I never felt that I had to sit with her to make sure she was paying attention. I was free to do other things—like clean the kitchen—while knowing that she was getting an incredible education.
  • They enhanced my daughter’s learning experience in a way that I never could. These courses include features such as video tours, interviews, and dramas. Replicating the same experience would have taken me hours—hours that, as a homeschool mom, I didn’t have.
  • They did all the hard work for me. I didn’t have to think about how to pace the course, how to grade her work, how to make each lesson interesting, or how to explain a difficult concept. Now, they didn’t eliminate all the work; I still had to grade papers and do some prep work, but overall these courses saved me tons of time.

As our children grew—we have three school-age children now—we have added more Distance Learning courses. These video courses have not just become important timesavers for me—they have become sanity savers. I’m honestly not sure how our homeschool would function without them.

If you’re looking for help in your homeschool, I would highly recommend that you try a Distance Learning course. Preview any of the courses on the BJU Press YouTube Channel, and check the special offers page for current discounts. You’ll be amazed at the difference Distance Learning can make!

What’s New in Distance Learning Online?

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New options in Distance Learning Online
I cannot begin to describe the blessing that BJU Press Distance Learning has been to my homeschool. It gives me the flexibility I need to keep up with the constant needs of my household. It gives me time to nurture my little ones. But best of all, it gives me the assurance that my daughters are getting a top-quality education with a biblical worldview. This year, we’re going to be using Distance Learning Online.

In the past, we’ve used the DVD program—and loved it! But the online program offers some benefits (and time savers) that the DVD program doesn’t, specifically in the areas of record keeping and lesson planning. And there are some new features this year that will give my children greater ability to manage their own learning and that will give me, as a homeschool mom, more control over their grades.

Encouraging Independent Learning

Most homeschool moms (including me) want their children to become independent learners. They want their children to be the kind of learners that can set goals, manage schedules, and meet expectations with little assistance.

Distance Learning Online encourages that kind of learning. In July, the online platform will unveil a new design that will help students manage their daily schedules. The new, simplified design will help students be able to easily pick up where they left off and will make it easier for them to move from one task to the next.

Another new feature will allow students to have more control over the speed of the video lessons. They can speed the video up or slow it down, depending on the amount of time they need with a concept or a task.

Giving Me Ultimate Control over My Homeschool

Part of the beauty of homeschooling is the ability to tailor the learning experience to each of my child’s individual needs. So, at the end of the day, I want to be in control of my child’s education. Distance Learning Online gives me that control. For example, the new design will even let me add items to the online gradebook. So if I want to add an extra project, I have the option of doing that.

I’m really excited about using Distance Learning Online this year. If you’ve used it before, what’s your favorite feature? I’d love to hear from you in the comments below.