Review: All About Homophones

In this age of spell check and word processing, a few skills that were once nonnegotiable have fallen by the wayside. Why invest hours in teaching your children the ins and outs of spelling when they will have those friendly (or is it "freindly"?) little red lines to guide them to better writing? Why even bother with penmanship at all, when chances are good that within another generation we will have morphed to an entirely digital era?

I'll give you the fact that there's some credence to those arguments. Knowing that a computer program has your back certainly makes both of those skills a little less daunting. I myself have succumb to a certain amount of malaise on the whole handwriting thing, you'll remember.

Yet there is one particular old-fashioned notion that I beg you not to write off; please, please teach your children homophones and their correct usages. Doing anything less is something akin to sending your children to an AWANA meeting buck naked: brownie points for being there, y'all ... but hey, aren't you forgetting something?

I could rave all day about All About Homophones. I could outline the superb teaching method. I could tell you that the graphic organizers make so much sense that even children who struggle to define individual words in print will make the connection. I could point out that the games are fun and educational. I could even tell you that the list of homophones alone is worth the purchase price. But frankly, most of you aren't convinced that there's a need for something this elementary. Your homeschool hours are packed with enough learning, you say. He'll just pick it up somewhere along the road (or is it "rode"?). I'm not making this an entire subject. I mean, really, MG. Have. you. seen. my. schedule?!?!

I may not have seen your individual schedule, but I have seen the fallout of homophones gone very, very wrong. Walk with me now, dear readers, as we encounter just a few examples of why you NEED All About Homophones.

And sometimes, you shouldn't skip your sixth grade grammar class.

Their there. No, wait! There they're. Shoot! They're their? Oh, whatever!

Pity those poor sugar uncles, left all alone while their wives circle the sink, doling out random capitalization and stealing punctuation marks.

Naked at AWANA, I'm telling you, people!

Please, look into All About Homophones. Make room in your homeschool schedule. Give the Grammar Nazis of this world less to groan over. Trust me, your ( or is it "you're"?) child will someday thank you (or is it "ewe"?).