Learning Note-Taking Skills

One thing that Johnny wanted the kids to start doing every day was listening to Adrian Rogers, Pastor Paul Shepperd or another good pastor (Chuck Swindoll, Charles Stanley, etc.).  We incorporated that into our lessons this week and it’s really turned into a great way to not only hear the Word but also for learning note-taking skills.

Our schooling does not involve me standing up and lecturing to them.  We are very relaxed in our studies and they do a lot of it on their own through research and reading.  Although I check their work and we solve any problems they face together, my hope is that they will learn to study on their own and learn to find answers without me giving them to them.  They are both learning to take notes this year, whether it’s in outline form or on index cards.  They are figuring out what system works best for them.  For James, he really learns information by putting notes on index cards and flipping through the cards as he studies.  Lauren is taking more notes on paper, although she uses the index cards for Latin.

Since I don’t lecture and most of their studies are based on DVDs they watch (like Math-U-See) or through reading, I thought that by taking notes while listening to a sermon would be like sitting in a classroom with a teacher who lectures.  It seems to be working really well.  They turn their notes in at the end of the sermon and we read through them together to see how they can get better and capture more information.  It’s kind of like “learning on the fly”.  I may also have them do this during the sermons on Sundays when we’re at church.  It’s a “real world” opportunity for learning note-taking skills.