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As homeschoolers, we hear the term “language arts” thrown around a lot, and it seems to mean different things to different people. But when you boil it all down, what the term means is really just the art of using language well. Everything you do to help your child grow in the art of using language well is part of language arts. If you think about it, you’ve already been doing a lot to help your child grow in using language well. Language is received and expressed in four ways: through hearing, speaking, reading, and writing.
Let me add a quick word for those of you who are teaching a deaf or non-verbal child. I’m using the terms “hearing” and “speaking,” but you can interpret those words as “receiving” and “expressing” in whatever language system works best in your situation.
The Charlotte Mason approach to language arts builds very naturally and gradually in those four areas. If you would like a quick tour through that gentle and logical process, you can watch my video about the natural progression of language arts. In this series, I’ll be talking more about the methods that Charlotte Mason used for language arts. Let’s start with good books.
Reading to our children is so important. And we can start that habit when they are little, as toddlers and preschoolers. There’s nothing that can compare to snuggling up on a couch with your little one in your lap or close beside you and sharing a good book together.
It’s a beautiful picture that many of us have experienced. But I want to give a special word of encouragement to those of you who may have a child who, for one reason or another, doesn’t enjoy sitting with you and reading a book together. Perhaps they avoid that physical contact and don’t seem to be looking at the page or the picture you’re pointing at, or perhaps they just can’t sit still long enough to get through a whole book.
You might need to alter your mental picture of snuggling up and reading stacks of books, but you can still share good books together.
Don’t give up. You might need to alter your mental picture of snuggling up and reading stacks of books, but you can still share good books together. You might try putting the book between the two of you to create some space. For some children your physical contact can actually be a distraction, so don’t insist on the snuggling. Some children find it difficult to look at something straight on, so even if it doesn’t seem like she is looking at the page of the book, she might very well be taking it in through the side of her eye. Don’t assume inattention. She’s absorbing more than you realize. Some children find it easier to process when they are moving. In that case, you might share the book by holding it up at your side as you read and showing the pictures to the room where your child is moving about, sort of like a librarian does when having story time with a group of children in front of her. Most of all, be faithful. Don’t give up. You are planting seeds, and you might not see the harvest during this season, but it will come. Read good books with your child.
As the children grow, we continue reading aloud to them. The Charlotte Mason Method uses good literary-style books for several school subjects: history, geography, Bible (of course, since the Bible is the living Book), science, and literature. In fact, the teacher should read aloud those good books for school work until the student is reading fluently on his own. Usually at about a fourth-grade level is when you can start making the transition to having the student read his own school books. For some students, that fourth-grade reading level may not be realized until they are older. That’s okay. I love how, with this approach, your student can continue to learn even if he’s not yet reading on his own. He can work on his reading skills during his reading lessons, but for all of those other lessons, you can read aloud to him so he can continue to grow and flourish in those subjects.
Yes, you could probably find watered-down, easy-reading books on those other subjects, but Charlotte believed that what we read with our children is just as important as the reading itself. A good book presents inspiring tales well-told and worthy ideas well-put. Just as we don’t talk baby talk to our children, so we shouldn’t read books that sound like baby talk. Charlotte called those kinds of books “twaddle.”
What Is Twaddle?
Twaddle assumes a child cannot understand a well-constructed sentence. It is like a diluted drink; not full strength. I don’t know about you, but to me, watered-down drinks are not pleasant. Good books paint pictures with words. You can see in your imagination a picture of what is being read. Good books also touch your emotions. They bring in details that resonate with our personhood; we can relate emotionally to what we are reading. Poetry, of course, is a great example of literature that paints pictures in our imaginations and touches our emotions. But even with poetry, we have to be sure we’re reading good poetry, not twaddle.
Usually that type of good book is written on a fourth-grade reading level or higher, just because of its wonderful, more advanced use of language. So we give our students that higher level of good books even before they can read it on their own, because they can understand it even if they can’t read it for themselves.
Those types of books are so engaging and so interesting that we may not realize all of the ways that they contribute to our students’ growth in the art of using language well.
Good books increase your student’s vocabulary very naturally, because new words are presented in context. Usually your student can discern what a new word means simply from how it is used in the conversation. You’ve probably observed something similar from your spoken conversations. When your children are little, you can talk about certain things in their presence and they’re clueless. But before long, they figure out what you’re talking about. They might not have all the details exactly right at the beginning, but over time they refine their understanding and hone in on an accurate definition of those words. If it’s especially difficult or confusing, sometimes they might ask for clarification; but most of the work is done quite naturally, over time, because of their in-born curiosity.
Good books increase your student’s vocabulary very naturally, because new words are presented in context.
And it’s the same with expanding that vocabulary through good books. As they hear or read more advanced sentences in the context of scenes that they can imagine and that touch their emotions, they’re natural curiosity urges them to figure out what any new words mean. They might not realize all the nuances immediately, but over time they will walk through the mental process of fine tuning those definitions. And if it is an especially difficult or confusing word, they will ask for help. We don’t have to pull word lists out of texts and make the students go look up the definitions. Good living books motivate and allow our students to pick up new vocabulary naturally.
Those literary-style books also reinforce good sentence structure and grammar. Have you ever noticed that the more you listen to certain ways of talking, the more they become familiar? Eventually those recurring patterns shape what you consider to be normal and you start emulating that kind of speaking, whether it’s a regional dialect or your extended family’s unique sayings. What we hear or read often, shapes our own use of language. So it just makes sense to give our students good, literary-style books that use proper grammar and excellent sentence structure. As they hear those sentences, and eventually read them for themselves, it shapes how they think about language and it cultivates a taste for an excellent use of words.
A wide variety of good living books from a diversity of excellent authors also gives our students a beautiful panorama of writing styles. Each author brings to the table his or her own writing voice; good authors don’t all sound the same. They each have a unique way of using language that communicates well but also stays true to who they are as individuals. And that’s what we want for our own students. We respect each child as a person in this aspect too. By offering them a wide variety of great authors, we are giving them a range of excellent models and reinforcing that important respect for the individual.
As your student gets older, she can explore more intentionally the different types of literature and the various components of it. But even then, that deeper study does not have to dissect a good book to death or steal all the joy from reading it—as so many of us, sadly, experienced in our own school years. Even literature analysis can be done in a natural way that encourages your student to continue enjoying great books. The Simply Charlotte Mason Great Book Discussions guides will walk your high school student through literature analysis without all of the over-analyzing.
You can also check out these links to free lists of our favorite good books for preschoolers and for the various school subjects that I mentioned earlier, for all ages.
Language arts is based on sharing good books. As Charlotte Mason put it:
Children must have books, living books; the best are not too good for them; anything less than the best is not good enough.
Parents and Children, p. 279
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