by Susan A. Howard
It is no secret that I am a big fan of good literature and consider it the key component of any homeschool curriculum. I am also a fan of the sensual experience of holding, smelling, flipping through the pages of a book. So, I was convinced that I would not take to the new and soaring e-reader phenomenon until my husband bought me a Kindle two Christmas' ago. What I have found is that whatever I thought I would miss in tactile pleasure I have regained in the enormous convenience, economy and functionality of the Kindle. Now, I am not promoting the Kindle over similar devices. I have experience with only one brand of e-reader. I expect that other devices have similar functionality, so if you wish to project my glowing review onto other devices feel free, as long as you don’t hold me accountable for any differences between devices!
For the purpose of literature-based homeschooling, the Kindle has proved to be invaluable for several reasons. The first is economical. At just over a hundred dollars, the Kindle costs less than many textbooks. When you then consider how much free and relevant data you can store on it, the economics make even more sense. Most of the classical literature you would want your student to read throughout his school years is available on Kindle for free. You can also send PDF and Word documents, study guides, articles and email attachments to your Kindle. Many of these documents can be purchased off the web or acquired for free. So, your overall documentation and materials cost for the school year would likely be less with than Kindle than without it if you and/or your students read a lot of literature during the year. And in the years to follow (unless you have a propensity to replace devices with every upgrade in technology) the costs should go down even further.
For convenience, you can’t beat the Kindle. Not only can you and your students can carry around most of their homeschooling material in a device as light as and as small as a thin paperback, but you can download additional material from anywhere in a matter of minutes. You can search the material in your Kindle easily, annotate the material, and lookup definitions instantly as you read.
Finally, especially when you use the available leather covers, the Kindle feels and handles very much like a real book, with this difference: It doesn’t become awkwardly unbalanced and fall out of your grip when you’re three fourths your way through a chunky novel like Les Miserables! And although it is probably not the best idea to read your Kindle in the bathtub, I do it anyway. I often forget I am not reading a paper based book.
So if you’ve been holding off buying a Kindle or other e-reader because you weren’t sure it would really meet your needs, I would encourage you to suggest to someone that it would make a really good gift!
(P.S. Amazon did not pay me to say any of this. I’m just sharing my personal experience.)
