Curiosity is a much better teaching tool than all the world’s best teachers put together. If the home school student is curious about a certain topic, it makes your life as a home school teacher much easier. All you have to do is point them in the right direction and encourage them to answer their own questions. Even in the home school class room, you may encourage your homeschool students to develop the skill of appropriate questioning by following a few basic steps. Here’s how it would work.
Set the Expectation that they Must Ask Questions
Often a homeschool teacher is too busy stating facts and figures that the child needs to learn in the classroom. They don’t expect much participation from the children. Some may even actively discourage the homeschool students from interupting them. This only serves to detach the students from the learning process. They feel as though their doubts and questions do not matter. As an alternative, the homeschooling parent should set the expectation from the students to ask questions each class.
Set a Time and Give them the Opportunity to Ask Questions
Asking questions can be disruptive to th eflow of teaching, so instruct your homeschool students that first you will teach them the topic, and then they should ask their questions. At the end of each lesson you need to set aside five to ten minutes to answer any questions that may have come up while teaching the day’s topic. If you do this regularly, they children will respond with more questions. You may need to prompt them to ask questions that are relevant.
Developing the Skill of Framing Questions Properly
Asking the right question to get the information that is desired is an important life skill. By encouraging your homeschool students to write down the questions they have on the topic that your are teaching, you will help them develop the skill of framing questions properly. As you create an ambience in the homeschool classroom that encourages asking relevant questions, you will find that your homeschool students stay attentive during class, and also ask deeply relevant questions.
