Should I Get a Kindle for our Charlotte Mason Homeschool?
The Charlotte Mason method emphasizes the use of plenty of living books over a wide curriculum: with literature, science, history, geography, citizenship, poetry, Bible, at the very minimum. In this digital age, would buying an e-reader like a Kindle be worthwhile? In this post, we hope to look at the pros and cons of using an e-reader, so you can help make the decision that best fits your family.
What is a Kindle?
The Kindle is Amazon’s e-reader, which boasts of e-ink capability. E-ink essentially means that even when you read under the hot sun, the page does not suffer from the reflection of outside light, which usually happens on screens like smartphones or tablets. Although there are a few other e-readers in the market, this post will focus mainly on the Kindle, because it has the added benefit for being connected to Amazon Kindle e-books.
Advantages of Using a Kindle
Here are some of the most important advantages we have found from using a Kindle for our homeschool:
1. You get access to all the free Kindle e-books
Many of the living books that fit well in a Charlotte Mason homeschool are classic books—many of which are already in the public domain. This means that they are available as free downloads on the Kindle store! If you have a Kindle, you can easily read these books for free, which might make it cheaper than buying all those books as physical books.
Of course, you can also do that on the Kindle app on your phone or tablet, but that leads us to Advantage #2.
2. E-ink means that you get to do away with glare
The Kindle’s e-ink technology makes it easier on the eyes than smartphones or tablets. Yes, you can surely read all the free e-books on a Kindle app on any device, but if you read them on smartphones and tablets, you also read them with the glare of these screens.
3. Less distraction for kids
Using a Kindle instead of a smartphone or tablet helps you do away with distractions, because it doesn’t come with games. That being said, we are referring to the Kindle e-readers and not the Kindle Fire, because the Kindle Fire comes with other features that may not be relevant to school reading!
4. Easy to bring around when traveling
Now, let’s compare having a Kindle to reading all your school lessons as physical books. Anyone here who feels that there’s nothing like the smell and feel of actual books? I still prefer to buy physical books whenever they’re available, but because we used to travel a lot (pre-pandemic), having a Kindle meant that we could do school wherever we were without having to lug around a whole backpack of books for one day of lessons!
5. Several people can read the same e-book on different devices
If you have a Kindle and your child has another one, you can both read the same book on your respective devices. That sure beats the trouble of trying to remember who last used the book! Plus, if you want to pre-read or at least read alongside a child who’s doing his readings independently, this is a good plus.
6. The font size change feature means even young kids can read longer books.
This is one of my favorite benefits: being able to change the font size! This means that even books that normally come in really tiny type in physical books can become accessible for younger children who need larger font sizes. This is especially common in the Charlotte Mason method, as we use living books that may not necessarily be written specifically for children. This way, they get to read the stories with large fonts that also make the books feel less intimidating.
7. You can get the e-books instantly no matter where you are.
Homeschooling with the Charlotte Mason method means that each year, you add more books to your collection. Even if some of the books aren’t free, when you buy them as a Kindle e-book, you get them as an instant download that you can read right away, without needing to wait for shipping. This is especially helpful when you happen to be out of the country, where shipping times can take ages.
8. The search feature makes it easy to locate a scene using a word or phrase.
If you want to find a word or phrase, the search function instantly pulls up where they occur in your library. This means that it can help you find which book you read a certain topic in, or within a book, it can help show you all the times those words came up. You can’t do that with a physical book, unless you have encyclopaedic memory!
9. You can highlight and write notes on favorite passages.
The Kindle has a Highlight and Notes function that lets you highlight your favorite passages, or type down your notes and insights right on the passage itself. Think of it as like writing on the margins of your favorite book, except that it also gets compiled in a Notes section that you can easily open anytime you want, and even export as a document.
10. You can leave mulitiple bookmarks for future reference.
The bookmark function allows you to mark places you want to return to. Note that we say it in the plural, because you can put as many bookmarks as you like on an e-book and easily navigate to those points when you come back to your reading.
11. You can sync your reading across multiple devices.
If your child is reading on a Kindle and then you happen to go somewhere without his Kindle, he can easily find his place on the Kindle app on your device, provided that you’re signed in to the same account.
12. It has options for locking the Amazon Store or the Browser.
If you want to keep your child from accidentally (or intentionally!) buying e-books on your credit card, or from browsing the Internet when he should be reading his school books, you can set Parental Controls to require a password for accessing the Store or the browser. For us, this was an important feature!
13. If you buy the waterproof version, you can even read while on the beach or in the pool
The Kindle Oasis can be a good choice if your family is frequently somewhere near water, or if your child is prone to spilling things on his school work. *wink* You can’t keep your physical books as safe from spillage!
Disadvantages of Using a Kindle (over Physical Books) for Homeschool
On the other hand, here are some things you need to consider before you buy a Kindle:
1. It may not be the best idea for a child who’s just learning to read.
Although the Kindle has the benefit of enlarging the words on the page for young children, if your child is just learning to read or still practicing reading, there is a disadvantage: you can’t point to the words on the Kindle as you would on a physical book, because once you tap the screen, it moves to another page! You also won’t be able to hold a ruler to guide your child’s reading like you would do on a physical book.
With that said, you can still use a Kindle to read aloud from, during the stage when your child isn’t able to read on his own yet.
2. Remembering where a scene is located is more difficult on a Kindle.
Do you recall the last scene you enjoyed when you read from a physical book? Chances are, you can visualize which part of the book that occurred. This trick is difficult, if not impossible, to do on a Kindle, because you don’t “feel” how much of the book has gone by.
But, you can always use the Search function, as long as you remember some keywords from that particular scene, so it may not always be a deal-breaker.
3. You can’t lend or resell your Kindle e-books to friends
One of the joys that booklovers enjoy is sharing our favorite reads with friends! You can’t do this when you read all your school books on a Kindle. Plus, if you buy e-books to read on your Kindle, you also won’t be able to resell them as you would physical books.
Then again, if you usually only download free e-books, there won’t be as much homeschool cost to want to recuperate, anyway!
4. You can’t easily cross-read for reference purposes.
Sometimes, we refer across several books, such as when we are doing research work or wanting to compare notes. It’s still a little cumbersome to switch between different books. (Maybe someday Amazon will be able to figure out a way to enable switching between multiple windows like smartphones and tablets have?)
5. Reading on an old model Kindle Paperwhite with the backlight on still constitutes glare.
I confess, my preferred Kindle for my personal use is the Kindle Paperwhite, because it comes with a backlight that I can use to read while in bed. (My son has the regular Kindle e-reader because we wanted to keep him from staying up late reading!) Unfortunately, reading with the backlight late into the night can still cause a bit of trouble falling asleep because of the light coming into the eyes.
Fortunately, the newer Kindle Paperwhite already comes with adjustable warm light. The same is true for the Kindle Oasis, mentioned above.
6. Ads!
The Kindle comes with ads, which you can do away with for an added fee. For us it’s not really a deal-breaker, as long as we keep the Store off-limits. If not, these ads may mean that your kids can accidentally (or intentionally) purchase books you don’t really want in your library!
Getting a Kindle for Your Homeschool
With these pros and cons for using a Kindle, we hope that we were able to help you make the decision about whether or not to go digital for your homeschool. We believe it can be a matter of personal preference, but we hope that knowing these benefits and challenges will make it an easier choice for you.