Literature-based curriculum.

A literature-based learning approach uses real, living books instead of relying on textbooks or computer screens. The highly academic approach has been primarily utilized by the homeschool community and is finally available to virtual students. Benefits of literature-based learning include:

Improves Reading Skills

Literature-based Learning Naturally Improves Reading and Communication Skills​

A textbook approach to History or Science may contribute to general knowledge, but a literature-based approach builds skills that are used in the real world.

BookShark programs schedule as many as thirty books per year. The volume of books naturally improves reading speed and comprehension. In addition to daily student reading, BookShark programs include Read-Alouds, books that parents read aloud to their students. This intimate interaction builds student listening skills and vocabulary. All reading is followed by open ended discussion questions, where parents and students discuss what was learned. These discussions build communication skills. Literature-based students are often identified by their ability to interact with adults and their peers.

Improves Writing Skills

Literature-based Learning Naturally Improves Writing Skills​

While textbooks have multiple writers, literature is written by one person who is passionate about the story they are telling. Charlotte Mason (a British educator) called these living books. While reading living books, students not only improve their vocabulary, they also learn how authors craft their writing. They absorb writing skills naturally from those who do it best.

Gives Context

Stories Give Context​

We remember stories better than dry facts. There are times for memorizing facts like multiplication tables, but without context, history and science facts provide empty knowledge. With the literature-based approach, students gain meaning to the facts. They not only know when or where an historical event occurred, but the circumstances surrounding the event. They learn how people lived and interacted with each other during the time period. Science facts come alive when students watch the scientific method unfold through stories of scientists and inventors.

Kids Love It

Kids Love Literature-based Learning​

Literature-based learning is not only a highly academic approach, it also provides students engaging variety. Instead of a heavy textbook, students read biographies and autobiographies, historical fiction, nonfiction, mysteries, classics, novels, science fiction, fantasy, and mythology. Students not only read on their own, their parents read stories aloud to them. For kids, the monotony of a fact filled textbook does not compare to the variety of books offered in a BookShark program.

Virtual Assessment

Benefits of a Virtual, Literature-based Program​

BookShark’s Virtual platform provides students the opportunity to spend their valuable learning time reading and discussing engaging books. They spend limited time in front of a screen and only need to login the final minutes of the day to take short assessments, track their progress, and communicate with their teacher.

BookShark has offered literature-based curriculum to the charter school and homeschool community for eight years and we are excited to make it available to virtual students. To learn more or find out how BookShark Virtual can benefit your virtual school, please fill out the contact information below.

Request a Consultation

Maddie Suter

720-215-6064

msuter@bookshark.com

BOOKSHARK VIRTUAL
8022 S GRANT WAY
LITTLETON, CO 80122