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Road Scholars: Teach Your Kids While You’re Driving

To do it effectively, it also helps to be organized. Flynn Keith advocates the use of flash cards, audio books and language tapes. In fact, there’s a whole section on ‘Getting Organized’, which can be monumentally useful provided you are one of those reasonably together parents.  (I am not – I figure that if I often forget to pack bottled water and enough snacks for the kids, what’s the likelihood that I’ll remember to bring a magnifying glass and field guide?)

Flynn Keith points out early in the book that it’s not about the mechanics and sticking to any formula. It’s about having fun with your children as you drive them from place to place, about turning off the radio or getting off the cell phone and just connecting with them in ways that stimulate and engage them. It could be as simple as waxing nostalgic about the day they were born, or as specific as telling them what the various car makes stand for – Pontiac was apparently named after a town in Michigan that itself was named after an Ottawa Native American.  Who knew?

“Effectively using time spent in the car with them playing fun and interactive educational games, or immersed in earnest discussions about provocative issues of the day,” she writes in the book, “Improves communication, builds trust and goodwill, and bonds families together in profound and heartfelt ways.”

I doubt there’s a parent among us who wouldn’t go for a bit of that.

Kavita Daswani is a Los Angeles-based journalist and the author of the novels, For Matrimonial Purposes, and The Village Bride of Beverly Hills. For more on homeschooling, look for Kavita's Why Homeschool?, Part Two, in which she chronicles her son's experiences in the Homeschool Partnership Program.

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