The following strategy would not work if every successful homeschool mom followed my advice. There are too many of them. The competition would be too stiff.
But they will not follow my advice. Why not? Because they lack self-confidence. No matter how well their own children do, they think: "I'm not very good." They do not want to go public.
Bottom line: they are embarrassed.
This opens up a way for a handful of moms to generate lifetime passive income. The checks will roll in, year after year.
How can they do it? Simple. Post a daily video lesson on YouTube. Take other moms through the teaching process. YouTube is free.
Then they embed the daily video on a page on a free WordPress.com website.
This takes only time.
Start with the McGuffey Readers. They are free. They are in the public domain. You can download them here: free McGuffeys. Use the PDF versions.
Start with the primer. Then move up, volume by volume.
Your strategy through the Second Reader is to use the videos to help moms take their children through the lessons. After the Second Reader, each video takes the child through the lesson. By the Third Reader, the child is ready for self-teaching.
If you use letters, just get clip art letters. They are in the public domain. They are free. Or you can buy a cheap CD-ROM filled with clip art. Then you can use anything on the CD-ROM. Start researching clip art here.
Teach spelling. There is a McGuffey speller. But you can do your own.
Teach grammar after the Second Reader. Use examples from the later McGuffey Readers. Grammar should always be taught by means of real literature, not stand-alone blackboard examples. Grammar should be real world. (I write for a living. Trust me on this.)
Then branch out. Add other public domain literature books. I recommend the wonderful animal stories by Thornton W. Burgess. Any Burgess book published prior to 1923 is in the public domain. There are dozens of them on the Web. Or you can order a set from Dover Books.
By the time the child is in the fourth year, it's time for classics, such as Robert Louis Stevenson's books, or the Elsie Dinsmore books for girls. Maybe the Oz books. The Anne of Green Gables books are in the public domain.
There are lots of reading materials on the Ron Paul Curriculum: Free Courses, K-5. You could create lessons based on them.
The grammar lessons keep coming every day. So do vocabulary words. So do weekly student essays on themes from the week's reading. Fridays should be essay days, not reading days.
How can you monetize these lessons? Initially, you can't. But over the long haul, you can.
The Ron Paul Curriculum has an affiliate program. You get 50% of the annual family subscription fee. These days, it's $250. You get $125. You get this every year that the family enrolls.
Get the details here:
Use this promotional link:
Beginning in the fifth year, you put in a brief promotional segment at the end of each video. You recommend the RPC. You direct them to the sales page. But this sales page recognizes the visitor as having come from your site. You get credited.
Do you teach courses other than reading, literature, and grammar? Do the same thing. Use public domain materials.
What do you need to buy? A lapel microphone, which costs around $30. This is a good one: Audio Technica ATR3350. Or buy one at Radio Shack.
You will need a screencast program that records your narration of an image that is on-screen. A good one is the one you can lease from Screencast-O-Matic. You can use a free version, but it sticks in a watermark promoting itself. For $15 a year, you can get it without the watermark. Test the free one. See how it works. Then upgrade.
Keep each video to 15 minutes.
Why couldn't any homeschool mom do this? No good reason, technically speaking. The barriers are psychological. "I'm not very good. I don't want other moms to know this."
This is money in your bank, if you start producing lessons.
As soon as you have 40 lessons on your WordPress site, send me a link. I will put a link to your site in the free section (K-5) of the Ron Paul Curriculum. Of course, if you don't keep producing lessons, I will remove the link. Send it to:
Put this is the subject box: Reading Project
© 2022 GaryNorth.com, Inc., 2005-2021 All Rights Reserved. Reproduction without permission prohibited.