Every morning, Ben Mumford starts his school day with math. At the age of ten, he is already working at GCSE level, but he does not always bother to get out of his pajamas (睡衣裤) in time for the class. He reads more books than most of his friends, studies science on the beach, and recently built a go-kart (卡丁车) in a technology lesson. Ben is happy and fulfilled, all, his mother believes, thanks to homeschooling.

Homeschooling is not what it used to be. What emerged in the 1970s as a way for Catholic (信天主教的) parents to infuse (灌输) religion into their kids’ education is now probably the fastest-growing form of education in the U.K. The number of homeschooled children has risen by about 40 percent over three years. Here are a handful of reasons why homeschooling makes sense in the 21^st century.

Contrary to the name, homeschooling takes place in an actual home only a small part of time. A great deal of instruction happens in libraries, museums and community colleges. These experiences have the effect of helping kids mature much more quickly and developing a trait of open-mindedness.

The key idea of homeschooling is that kids need to learn at the speed, and in the style, most appropriate for them. Without formal curriculum to guide their education, homeschoolers get the chance to explore a range of topics that might not be normally offered until high school or college. They can study psychology in the fourth grade, or finance in the eighth grade.

The most common misunderstanding about homeschoolers is that they lack social skills. However, social media makes it convenient for homeschoolers of today to have just as much opportunity to make friends as kids studying in traditional schools. Meanwhile, they do not need to deal with the potential problems of being around kids in a school environment, including bullying, which might result in anxiety and depression.

For most people, school is really good, and it works for them because they learn in the way that school teaches. However, there are so many different ways of learning and processing (处理) information and knowledge. It does not necessarily work for everyone.

Magazine Articles: More Valuable Than You May Think

Parents are often surprised when teachers suggest their children read magazines. Read on to learn about the benefits that reading magazines offers to young readers and how to introduce your children to the medium.

Magazine Benefits

Magazine articles can provide reluctant readers with a lively, breezy writing style that can inspire them to read more.

The articles in magazines are generally short, which allows a child to finish reading a feature article without losing interest due to a short attention span. The writing in magazines also tends to be easy to read, especially if it is a children's publication.

By allowing your child to read magazines at an early age, you are encouraging development of a useful skill.【小题1】Getting into the habit of reading periodicals as a child will foster the habit of reading news articles that may continue into adulthood.

【小题2】 Magazine articles challenge students to think about issues they may have never considered or cause them to rethink their world view. Information is available in a wide variety of reading levels because magazines are written for every audience imaginable. Many publications cover the same material in different writing styles that might make it easier for your child to comprehend.

Magazine Activities

Reading magazines as a family can be used to introduce each other to the various interests that each family member possesses. When your children are finished with their magazines, encourage them to pass their issue on to a sibling or other family member.

Once each family member has finished reading each magazine, you can use them for art and writing projects. These projects are for family members of all ages:

1. Cut out pictures to help your preschool and kindergarten children learn their alphabet, numbers, and colors.

2.【小题3】 Paste the picture at the top of a page and have them write a story about what is happening or what the picture represents.

3. Clip pictures to create a collage. Many teenagers love using their artistic talents to collage.

【小题4】The skills that students utilize and strengthen when reading magazines can be applied to higher level reading and other academic subjects. Encouraging your child to read by giving them a magazine subscription could cause them to take the leap from being a reluctant N reader to a voracious page-turner.

What do Ikea founder Ingvar Kamprad, Sir Richard Branson, Billionaire investor Charles Schwab, Walt Disney, and Henry Ford have in common? All are or were successful entrepreneurs with dyslexia — a learning disorder that makes it very difficult to read, write, and spell. People with dyslexia have trouble connecting the letters they see to the sounds they make and as a result, often struggle in school.

But in the real world, they make great achievements. They’re behind some of the most successful companies on Earth.

Richard Branson is one of the greatest entrepreneurs of our time. He created numerous businesses under the Virgin umbrella and has a net worth of $5 billion. Branson once admitted that Virgin which now employs 90,000 people would not have been successful had he not been dyslexic. Branson had a hard time keeping up with his peers because of his dyslexia and dropped out at the age of 16. Yet he transformed his weakness into an advantage. He understood the importance of communicating well. And his dyslexia also forced him to delegate tasks to those who excelled in the areas where he was weak.

Research has found people with dyslexia are more likely to delegate authority and also twice as likely to own two or more businesses. A study out of Cass Business School in London found more than a third of American entrepreneurs surveyed showed signs of dyslexia. Another commissioned by the BBC found 40% of that country’s self-made millionaires showed some signs of the learning disability. That’s significantly higher than the estimated 5% to 10% of the general population with some degree of dyslexia.

The question is: Are their entrepreneurial strengths a result of nature or nurture? A dyslexia expert believes they are naturally better at certain things, like picking up social cues. In an article in The Sacramento Bee about California governor Gavin Newsom who has dyslexia, Dr. Marilu Gorno-Tempini of UC San Francisco said, “He can understand what people need and their emotions more than others. I don’t think that’s a compensation. I think that’s the superpower of his dyslexic brain.” She and other scientists at UC San Francisco recently discovered children with the disorder had greater changes in heart rate and facial behavior when they viewed video clips of others experiencing emotions compared to children without dyslexia.

Eleanor Palser, one of the researchers who conducted the study, concluded to Newsthink, “This tells us that dyslexia might be associated with biological differences in empathy(移情)...”