We are enjoying these vintage ebooks available for free download at Google Books and Project Gutenberg, among others. I've got many listed by subject at my online homeschooling library.
This week my fifth grader is reading Jan the Dutch Boy, and I am reading Rollo Learning to Talk with the three year old. Both are very enjoyable and useful! The Dutch book has many illustrations and teaches quite a bit about Holland along with many dutch words. It is a social studies book about Holland seen through the eyes of Jan the Dutch boy, and his family adventures throughout the town. I think the reading level is about fourth grade, but the information can be appreciated by older children. Even I enjoyed it.
The Learning to Talk book is a wonderful guide for teaching very young children vocabulary and conversation. I'm using this with my three year old daughter who is speech delayed. In order to read and talk about the pictures, you do need to print them out extra large. There is no way to read the book and show the pictures at the same time, as the lesson often continues onto the next page, away from the picture. The pictures are also very small and hard to see.More for learning about Holland :
Dutch/Holland/Netherlands Literature for Children
Both books work well as ebook learning. My son reads his on an inexpensive mini-laptop which I purchased last year. His books are stored on an external flash drive.
I ended up having the Rollo Learning to Talk book printed for about $8.00 before I realized that the book is more like a teacher's guide for the parent, and the pictures therein need to be printed separately. I could have used the computer to read this book to my daughter for free.
So much of homeschooling can be done for free with these vintage ebooks, particularly classic literature, nature science, English, foreign languages, math, and history. All you need is a computer and you have access to these books either as a download, or read online. These books are printable as well, but that could get quite costly for ink and paper. I've printed out short stories in the past, but reading longer books on a computer is more cost effective.
Other devices will read ebooks, like a Blackberry, although I don't know too much about this. I think reading selections might be limited. You need a device which has a PDF reader to download and read free books via Google Books, and Project Gutenburg books can be downloaded via "copy all" and "save" in HTML; entire books can also be downloaded as a PDF.
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3 comments:
I love books on tape, but they are expensive to buy. My library allows "electronic checkout" which we love. Finally, I found LibriVox - and we have been in heaven.
My youngest was speech delayed/language acquisition delayed. He loved to have books read to him, but sometimes, I needed to fold clothes or iron or cook dinner. I would put on a Librivox book and we would listen together. Since it is a free service recorded by volunteers, he had to listen to multiple people continue the story. I discovered that he had a hard time with some people, mostly women, but accents didn't throw him off as much as rhythm of speech. It really helped me work with him.
He is still homeschooled, but his reading level is 7th grade - two above his age, with his comprehension also at 7th grade. (Standardized testing for the worried mom...)
I used vintage or used curriculum myself and loved it. Unfortunately, my children out grow me when they hit high school/Calculus (my oldest)... but I think homeschooling is what gives them the confidence and love of learning. The reprints and vintage books give them perspective.
Thank you for your blog
Miss Mary
My fifth grader is the same - formerly speech delayed and reading above his level. I haven't had him tested, but he reads Tolkien and C.S Lewis without trouble.
He was very fond of books on tape(and cd-rom living books) when he was delayed as well. We were fortunate to find quite a few at the library and thrift stores.
Thanks for sharing! I always find it interesting to hear how other mother's fared with homeschooling speech delayed children. There are a lot of similarities as far as their learning patterns.
I like Librivox as well...a great resource!
Love the Dutch books. :)
Thanks Alexandra.
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