If the concept is new to you and are facing difficulty in choosing the right curriculum, then converse with other home schooling families about the materials popularly used and the subjects. You can gain vast knowledge from the experiences of other people.



Finally, trust your instinct, as there is no one better than you as a parent who can think of what is best suited for the academic pursuits of the child. Select a curriculum that suits the needs and interests of your child.

Reading and writing are two main skills, which a child should master, in an educational program. Without these basic skills, he will face difficulty in mastering and learning other skills.

There are various methods to teach reading and writing to a child including phonic instruction, vocabulary, grammar and spelling. When you home school your child, you must teach your child reading and writing. Many curriculum choices are available online and in text form.

. Preschool language - As you start reading out stories to your child, he begins to love the process. He also learns other skills along the way like identifying the front and back of the book, how to hold the book and how to turn the pages gently. The child also starts recognizing alphabets and displays an interest in phonics as he learns the alphabet and the various sounds of the alphabet. At this stage, the main thing to do is to engross the child in the reading activity and begin teaching him pre-reading skills.

. Kindergarten and First Grade - Once you begin the formal education of reading and writing, you can start teaching alphabet sounds and phonics. This technique is available via the various phonics based reading programs readily available in the market. You can teach writing skills to your child by using worksheets. Writing skills are accentuated by first teaching a child how to hold a pencil correctly.

When a child moves to the second or third grade, the focus should shift from reading to writing. You can teach your child vocabulary as a part of literature and teach the meaning of words in a story.

From the sixth and seventh grade, the students increase their theoretical thinking and reasoning skills and this is the right time to analyze literature. Many home schools curriculum programs use the techniques of living books to involve the students to develop ideas about their reading and writing skills.

The key to a successful reading and writing program is to focus on real literature. You should select a subject that interests your child and urges him to read good literature.

There are many resources available for home schoolers. You can choose either single subject curriculum that includes text-books as well as the materials required by the teacher or the Unit Studies program, which integrates writing, reading and literature into an all subject area instruction, based on a theme.