About Me

I’m a writer, prior public school teacher, and mom of 5 wonderful little girls. My girls are 12, 10, 9, 6, and 4. I homeschool all of them using a classical education model. I’ve been blessed to be married to my best friend, Richard, for the last 15 years. I have also enjoyed “picking back up my pen”, so to speak, and have been getting back into writing which was a childhood passion of mine. Besides running a blog, I have written for Modern Reformation, the National Right to Life, the Baptist Standard, and Live Action News. I’m a passionate believer in children’s abilities…. My motto is: “Children Are Capable!” And I want to help every parent know and believe in the abilities of their children. I hope to excite parents everywhere to never underestimate the intelligence, memory, or character growth that their children are capable of. I want them to experience the joy and excitement that following the Lord will create in their children’s hearts. I hope to encourage every parent to take their God given role to daily raise their children up in the faith seriously.

I’m a Christian believer who struggles to cling every day to Christ and His Word, and I see Him helping me and my family in all our faillings, in our trials, and in our daily lives as we strive to raise strong Christian children who will withstand the onslaught of the spiritual world in this day and age. And I know He will help you too!

I started taking piano, violin and voice lessons as a child, and I ended up moving to the East Coast when I was 15 years old to go to a school which would provide more performance opportunities for me. I ended up attending Catholic University of America when I was 17 on an academic scholarship and majored in General Choral Music Education. I graduated sum cum laude in 2008, and immediately began teaching middle school in inner city D.C. What an adventure THAT was! I was on crutches at the time due to a nervous system disorder in my feet that had just started, I was only 20 years old, and had no idea what I was getting into. Needless to say, I learned some important things like how to pretend to be brave even when I was terrified, how to deal with fist fights between students, and how to reach kids in some of the most difficult life situations imaginable. But the most important lesson I learned was how much I loved middle schoolers! Even after all that, you may ask? Yes indeed. I couldn’t believe it, but it was true, I love that crazy age! I took another teaching job (again, in middle school) in Fredericksburg, VA where I taught an additional four years before becoming pregnant with our first child.

I wanted so much to stay home and raise our daughter, but my husband was a freelance musician at the time (a trombone player) and we had to decide what our options were for that to happen. Thankfully we were on the same page with the same goals about child rearing, and he decided to join the Army as a musician to support the family. We moved to Texas, and the rest has been a whirlwind history! We’ve moved about every 2 years for the most part, and along the way we’ve had 5 beautiful daughters and 3 other children who are waiting for us in heaven. We also have two cats and one wickedly smart German Shepherd.

We didn’t initially talk about what we’d do when it came to school for our first child, Irene. I just read her a lot of books and played with her, teaching her things about life as we went along. Nothing official, just what I figured she should know. I never even considered whether I’d homeschool or send her to school. One day I went to a friend’s house who had a little boy my daughter’s age (about 2). She was homeschooling her son, and he was a delightful boy to be around: smart, kind, respectful and just an all-around good kid. She took me into his room and showed me things she was teaching him. At 2, he knew his numbers 0-100, days of the week, months, and many other things that I’d never considered a 2-year-old being capable of knowing. She also told me about a book called “Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons” and said a family of 7 she knew had taught each of their kids to read young by using this book. I thought wow, if it worked for each kid in a family of 7, it must be worth looking into! I ordered the book. When it came, I saw that it told me exactly what to say to my child to teach them to read. Word for word. I didn’t have to know, do, or make up anything. I just had to read the words. I started it with my daughter when she was 2.5 and I’m not going to lie, there were plenty of hard days. Sometimes she didn’t want to do it. Sometimes I lost my temper. But I saw her making little steps towards progress and we kept at it. I didn’t have friends at the time who supported me, besides the one I previously mentioned. Most of the people I knew were unsupportive about my teaching my daughter to read so young. They held a view that I was hurting them somehow (or ruining their childhood) by requiring a few minutes of focus on this a day. When she was 3 years old, she had finished the book and was reading at a 2ndgrade reading level. Once she caught onto it, the battles were a thing of the past and she absolutely SOARED! Her reading level skyrocketed after that and she was inhaling books faster then I could give them to her. Everyone who saw her take this path (family and friends) were as shocked as I was. She learned so much through her ability to read on her own. Gradually she surpassed me in random bits of knowledge because she would read things, even out of children’s encyclopedias, and remember them forever. I was amazed at how everything seemed to stick! That age old “children are little sponges” phrase had new meaning. And I loved that it gave her something to do when she was bored (we didn’t have a TV and still do not…which I love!).

Having a 3-year-old who could read made my life so much easier and her life so much happier. Reading seemed to give her a sense of power and autonomy. She could read what she wanted, when she wanted— whether that be about town, while we were driving, or in any book she wanted— and it helped me as I added another member to our family: another baby girl. When we went to appointments, Irene could sit quietly and read books that she enjoyed. No need for a tablet, a charger, distracting noise, or questionable content. Reading books didn’t shorten her attention span like tv either, but rather it did the opposite. It lengthened it. When I needed her to entertain herself and she was tired to playing with toys, she could read books. And when I went to teach her school, it gave her some more freedom because she could read her own directions. It also made school easier because we could focus on writing alone, and not reading AND writing at the same time. Then once writing was mastered, which was very soon after reading, we could easily add math, and then there was a cascade of subjects she could do easily and with joy. Reading became second nature to her and that allowed her to engage with the material directly, without any obstacles in her path. There were so many benefits that came from teaching her to read young!

As our second child, Esther, grew, we decided to do the same thing with her and teach her to read at that age as well. So, at 2.5 years old, Esther started the reading book. She was something else, I’ll tell you what. She was quite stubborn (like her mama) and didn’t want to learn how to read. She would “read” while looking up and out the window, which drove me crazy. “How can you read if you don’t look at the page?!” I’d ask a million times over. But we kept with it. A little a day. Doesn’t have to be a whole lesson. But a little a day and pushing her to try a little more every time I sensed we could push for a little more. Esther had a speech impediment due to many ear infections as a baby, and learning to read was like speech therapy for her. We worked daily on the sounds she struggled to make, and practiced, practiced, practiced. I always look back with a wry smile on how difficult she was to teach to read because that very same kid, once it clicked, became my most avid reader in the family, even to this day. If she is upset, she grabs a book. If she is overwhelmed, she grabs a book. If she has had it with too much noise in the house, she grabs a book. If she is lonely, she grabs a book. She has read every book (minus maybe four or so) on my extensive vetted reading list (available here) and continues to amaze me. However, it wasn’t always sunshine and roses! She was DIFFICULT!

We continued on the same path with our third daughter Clara, and by the time the fourth daughter (Mary) arrived, I fully expected she would learn to read at the same time. However, when she still wasn’t speaking at 2 years old, I was concerned not just about her future in reading but about her mind in general. Was something wrong with her? She would say “mama” and “dada” but that was about it. I heard from friends and family that she was probably fine (she sure ACTED normal otherwise), but that she just had 3 older sisters talking all the time and probably didn’t feel the need to talk much. My mom instinct was growing increasingly concerned as time went on though. She would make various noises, but I yearned to hear her sweet voice in words and to know her thoughts and feelings more deeply then just whatever my mother’s instinct was picking up on. I talked with a speech therapist and we were trying to work out how they could do therapy with her when she was so shy and closed off to speaking at all (and talking to a stranger would have been impossible to imagine!). When one day it dawned on me…why don’t I just TRY the reading book? After all, it introduces one simple sound at a time. Maybe she would repeat it? …So I did. …..And sure enough, she did repeat the simple “m”…and then the simple “s”….and then the “e” and pretty soon she was at words. And one day, one beautiful, magical day, God blessed us and she spoke. The first sentence she spoke was a sentence she read out of that book: “See me read.” I was over the moon! My darling girl learned to read and in learning to read, she learned to speak. I think part of it was watching my mouth closely while we practiced the words in the book, and part of it was having specific instruction as to which sound was what, and the other part was God working through that book. Now she talks a mile a minute and I love it!

I’ve already introduced my newly turned 2-year-old (Joyce) to the book, and she loves doing little sounds sporadically for a “lala” (a very tiny piece of chocolate). I figured if a very little one can point to an animal and say the sound it makes, why can’t that same child point to a letter and say the sound IT makes? Turns out, they can. So I’m glad I learned that with my 5th child! We just do a few sounds at a time, and I don’t even have to remind her for the reading book. She happily remembers it herself whenever she wants a little sugar pick-me-up. And we just do a tiny bit at a time. Going through all these girls and watching their abilities soar after they learn to read, has changed my life. It’s made me passionate about children’s abilities. I want to continue teaching others what their kids are capable of. Not just that they’re capable of learning to read young, but that they are capable. Period. Your child CAN and does learn all the time, whether you actively teach them or not. So I encourage you to take each moment as a mom or a dad and use it to the glory of God. Take each moment as an opportunity to teach your child good things—whether that be self control, or reading, or how to cook….They are starving for knowledge. It’s a precious time to feed their hearts and minds with good things!