How to Teach Literature
Teaching literature and language arts using The Gentle Learning Co. reading plans
How to Teach Literature
Choose the literature tracks that you would like to study this year. You can either read about these books as a family, or each child who is able to read independently can study a track or two of literature on their own. Or, perhaps you will read about one person as a family and have each child read about another person.
When you or your child sits down to read historic literature, make sure to have the following tools on hand: a timeline book or book of centuries, maps of the world and of the U.S., and a writing utensil. Find the locations that are mentioned in the book. Write down the significant dates in your timeline book. This will solidify the learning and help tie it together to other subjects you read about with your child.
Have your child narrate what he or she learned. There are different ways to do this:
Have your child tell back what they learned in a chapter.
Ask your child to write or draw what they learned in a chapter.
When you choose a book, make sure to pay attention to the “Form.” The Forms are groups of grade levels:
Form 1: pre-K through 1st grade
Form 2: 2nd through 3rd grade
Form 3: 4th through 6th grade
Form 4: 7th through 8th grade
Form 5: 9th through 10th grade
If a book was placed under a “Form,” that means that the child should probably be in that Form (or higher) to read it independently. Any of the books listed can be read aloud, though you may want to check the content of some of the Form 4 and 5 books before reading them to a young child.
I am a big advocate of “Whole Family Homeschooling,” and Literature is one of the topics that is easy to teach to all of your children at once. This can be done by reading one or two books aloud to your kids–or, have them narrate out loud to each other what they’ve been learning in a book.
You may wish to print the reading schedules for people you have chosen for the year, or add the assignments to your homeschool planner or personalized spreadsheet. It is not necessary to print this entire document.
When more than one chapter is assigned to a week, I have typed each chapter on a separate line, so that the reading plan to be printed and used as a checklist throughout the term. As you read one chapter, put a checkmark by it or cross it out (or both), and move on to the next chapter on another day.
Using Literature for Every Subject
You can use literature to teach every single subject. I really shouldn’t tell you this, because you may not use any of the other subjects I’ve put together after this. 😅As you read a book out loud, listen for the following subjects:
Geography
History
Science, Nature
Math
Art and Handicrafts
Life Skills (Cooking, etc.)
Enrichment (Composers, Artists, Poets)
Finish reading the section or chapter, and then go explore or DO the thing the book mentioned. Make the craft or recipe. Look up the places on a map, or better yet, on Google Earth. For example, when my kids were younger, we learned that Benjamin Franklin once lived on Milk Street in Philadelphia, so we looked it up on Google Earth. It looks quite busy today!
If the book mentions a song, listen to it. If there is a poem in the book, look it up (many poems are available online for free). Explore the kinds of nature that are mentioned. Find the type of tree, look for the kinds of clouds, go to a zoo and see the types of animals. Make literature come alive.
Some people might say that this doesn’t fit with Charlotte Mason’s methods, because it’s more of a “Unit Study,” and that it really benefits the teacher more than the students. In my experience, my children LOVED this kind of homeschooling. We made so many memories this way. I pray that you and your children will make memories around literature, too!
Click on the images below to see the cycles: