Another book

What with the nasy weather, and the children taking ages to get to sleep, I've been doing lots of reading recently, and here's another review.
How Children Learn At Home by Alan Thomas & Harriet Pattison was a fascinating read - academic yet accessible and rather inspirational and quite a relief for those of us using mainly informal learning with our children. I was particularly interested in their comment that the way informal learning was acquired in all its chaotic, leaps forward, regressions and general piecemeal nature was highly similar to the way learning is acquired at the cutting edge of scientific research, the methods of writing novels, composing music and various other highly creative and high level projects. Maybe my children will be geniuses yet!
The way the book is split into different subject areas - reading, writing and maths in particular makes it easy to find the area you are most interested in and the quotes and example from families are illuminating and fascinating in themselves.
All in all a great read, especially if you're home educating using informal learning methods, or if you want to know how these ways of learning may fit in with school.