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TEACHING
APPROACHES: Bible Focus
I Charlotte
Mason I Unit
Studies I Heart
of Wisdom
Delight
Directed I Notebook
Method I Classical
I Unschooling
I Textbooks
Textbook
curricula have graded textbooks in each subject.
Teachers refer to teacher's manuals and children
use textbooks. This was probably the approach
you grew up with, a lecture-study-test method.
Year after year the same concepts are reviewed.
Major Christian textbook suppliers are
Abeka, Bob
Jones, Rod and Staff and Christian
Liberty Press. If you like the information
in the textbooks but prefer a more hands on approach
you can always use the textbooks as reference
books.
Workbooks
give the text in a write-in consumable book. The
student reads the text then answers a series of
questions about the subject matter. There are
companies that provide several workbooks in each
subject for each grade such as Alpha Omega, ACE
and Christian Light Education (Mennonite).
Textbooks
don't work with all students. The public schools
achievement tests scores speak for themselves.
Seventy-five percent of students using text books
require more to retain the material. (McCararthy).
Read What's
Wrong with Textbooks.
Scholars
in fields ranging from science to American History
have assailed the texts used in many American
classrooms, claiming the books talk down to students,
get key facts wrong, or misinterpret them in ways
that confuse students and frustrate teachers.
Textbooks have too much influence on instruction.
They are problematic because of their blandness
and superficiality, and also because they constrained
instruction. Textbooks encourage instructors to
"cover" the material and rely too much
on lower-order thinking skills. Textbooks are
necessary for math and sometimes science but history
and literature should be gained from living
books.
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