Customer Reviews

How to Teach Your Child: Things to Know from Kindergarten Through Grade 6 (Education)

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Just finished scanning this book. As a home schooler, it seems to have a very good list of phonics facts. I did find however the continuous references to war and violence when the author was illustrating a point-a bit - no, very tiresome. Perhaps the gulf war was of special interest to the author or perhaps it was a conscious effort to make the book appear timely. In my humble opinion it was just plain annoying.

As a Canadian, I found bits and pieces of useful information. I will NOT use this book as my only resource - but will keep it for reference.

I too found the constant references to the Gulf War tiresome. I also found some factual errors (koalas are not bears) and a few words that were spelled wrong. I will use the book as a reference, but will find other books to use, also.

This book was give to me second hand since we are a homeschooling family. This book scared the heck out of me. It has numerous comments in it that are aimed towards war, violence, the Gulf War... I wonder if this book intended a motive other than educational.

I also find the book to be not so much about learning, but more about memorizing facts. Not knowing the information behind the facts. And as far as what a child "should know" per grade level is pretty much underestimating children today. As a homeschooling family, we certainly are beyond most of the grade level tasks suggested.

As much as I hate tossing books to the trash, this one isn't worthy of anyone, and I wouldn't dare pass it along!

This book is clearly intended for the home schooling market, which is part of why this book is so dangerous. Dangerous, I say, because it represents the worse kind of old-fashioned teaching, which equates the knowledge of labels, categories, and descriptions with education.

For example, it lists the basic types of clouds (stratus, cumulus, and cirrus), but gives only the briefest discussion of the water cycle, or weather patterns, or meteorology and weather prediction, etc. In other words, your child would be taught *what* things are called, but may never understand the proces or mechanisms involved. The study of history is similar, if not worse -- consisting mostly of names and dates, presents a naively heroic and linear progression of events, and focuses entirely on American history. Your child may know what Paul Revere was famous for, but will have little understanding of the historical processes which were at play in the American revolution. For the author, it is sufficient that the child learn that "the colonies had a dream to be free!" I think even a 5th grader deserves a better explanation than that (worse, if an adult believes it, too).

The title itself is misleading, since there is very little on "how" to teach; it mostly tells about "things to know." The section on critical reasoning and thinking is particularly disappointing, devoting about one paragraph to "evaluation," which is the single most important step. Not suprisingly, a lot more pages are devoted to "describing," "classifying," "summarizing," etc. It's as if this book is stuck in the Middle Ages, trying to rediscover Aristotle's natural philosophy.

In my opinion, this book could serve well only as a basic primer for a parent whose own schooling was rather lacking. But if that is the case, the parent is probably a lot better off entrusting the education of his/her children to someone with some knowledge and professional expertise.

As a final comment, I should note that this book takes the effort to point out that humans are the "highest" form of animal, and are primates only because humans have "flexible hands and feet." Not only is this wrong, it also stinks of a religious agenda.