Escape Velocity Education

Learning to read is one of the two crucial skills that are absolutely crucial to an independent learner. As such, an entire page discusses  resources for acquiring this skill.

•  McGuffey's Spelling Book

  If you prefer a   physical copy ,reprints are available from Amazon and other book sellers. This spelling book is a progressive and order development.

•  K-12 Spelling

  This site has weekly word lists for 1st through 5th grades. It has become a bit ad heavy and too flashy for me to stay on the site long.

•   Spelling Words Well

  This site has printable word lists.

•   Reading Rockets

  This site claims to list 850 words which will account for 80% of the words that 1st through 5th graders use in their writings. It seems valuable for that reason, but does not break the word lists up into word families following any sounds or spelling rules.

•  Learn That Word (Free/$$)

  This site coaches you as you learn spelling. It has both free and subscription modes.

•   SAT Word Lists from MajorTests.com

  These word lists are more targetted to improving your vocabulary than spelling. Each list includes 100 important vocabulary words.

•  Wordlywise

  Wordly Wise is a set of workbooks for spelling and vocabulary. Wordly Wise partnered with Quizlet to provide  flashcards to review the material.

• Michael Clay Thomson:Vocabulary

  This vocabulary sequence explains root words and stems to help the student acquire word meanings that were not explicitly covered.

  •  Building Language
  •   Ceasar's English I
  •   The Word Within the Word
  •   Royal Fireworks Press
  Are a few samples of this set. Non advanced readers or spellers might want to begin with a lower level of this series.
•   Orthography by Elmer W Cavins

  This text targetted at seventh and eighth graders (from 1904) largely consists at word analysis. It discusses in detail word meanings and interactions between prefixes, suffixes, and root words.

Spelling

Learning to spell goes hand and hand with learning to read and the ability to use standard spelling is critical to being accepted as educated. Some spelling lists promote "sight" words early on. These words should be skipped until the phonics rules to sound these words out are understood. Sometimes the correct phonics rule is actually a combination of knowing that the word is of non-English origin and then knowing the correct phonics rule for that language, but knowing the rule opens up the ability to spell correctly more than a single word.

As listed there are numerous freely available resources to develop spelling skills. Reading good literature that does not use non-standard spelling will help in this.

Vocabulary

An expansion of both spoken and written vocabulary allows a wider palete of expression. Acquiring a robust vocabulary can be tackled at the same time as learning to spell or as a separate activity. Much as listening comprehension can be more advanced than reading comprehension in some students a spoken vocabulary may be larger than a written one at first.

•  ENGLISH GRAMMAR
•   PUNCTUATION
•   COMPOUND WORDS

TYPOGRAPHIC TECHNICAL SERIES FOR APPRENTICES

These historical texts for typographic apprentices cover a lot of English grammar concisely. The basics of grammar, for example, is covered in a mere fifty-two pages.

Purdue Online Writing Lab

•  American Literature Outline

  This text provides an overview of American Literature from the Early American and Colonial periods through contemporary literature.

•  American Literature

  This site has selections available sorted into groups by author and genre.

American Literature

1931 West Virgnina Elementary Test

This is worth a glance to see what was expected to graduate from elementary school in 1931 in West Virginia.

The penmanship prompt is worth keeping in mind today:

The longer I live, the more I feel the importance of adhering to the following rules:

'Hear as little as possible which is against others, and believe nothing detrimental to others until proved true. Never drink the spirit of one who circulates a bad report. Always moderate as much as possible the unkindness expressed towards others. Know that there are always two sides to every story'." -- Unknown

Use your local library

Khan Academy

•  US History AP®
•  World History  AP®
•  US Government and Civics  AP®

MIT Opencourseware

Open Yale Courses

Sheppard Software

National Geographic Bee Study Resources

There are some resources and methods that span many foreign languages. Repetition or lack of repetition in the individual language section does not reflect on the quality of the materials. There are many Foreign Language Service Institute Language courses that have been released to the public domain.

•   FSI a site hosting some public domain Foreign Service Institute language lessons.
•   Live Lingua another FSI language site. Also has one on one language lessons ($).
• Yojik Website FSI information and more.

•  Babbel
•  Duolingo
•  Memrise
Streaming

There are many foreign language resources available for audio and video streaming. Some sites allow searching by audio and closed-caption language availability. Many libraries also have resources in various languages available for check out.

•   National Latin Exam has practice questions and prior year exams
•  Minimus Latin -- Introductory Latin for young children
•   Oxford Latin Course -- A multi-level Latin course.
•   Wheelock Latin -- Highschool and college Latin text

 Study Guide to Wheelock Latin by Dale Grote from Amazon
  or digital notes

This is a chapter by chapter guide from a Latin professor at UNCC to accompany the Wheelock text and provide context.
As the author indicates: A growing difficulty with the book has become apparent in recent years, a problem that is entirely external to the text itself: students are less and less able to understand his explanations of Latin grammar because their grasp of English grammar is becoming more tenuous.

This complaint holds for all foreign language acquisition except sign language. Students may have difficulty with the grammar of the foreign language because they have not mastered the grammar in English!

•  Destinos
•   Spanish Proficiency Exercises University of Texas at Austin
•  Modern States Spanish Language
• Spanish language shows on streaming services such as Netflix.
•   BBC Mi Vida Loca
•   AlbaLearning books and audio books.
•   DuoLingo - free and subscription language learning.
•   UTA
•   SpanishHour - an hour a day lessons to learn in 50 days.
•   National Spanish Exams has exams from previous years to test yourself.
•  BYU Independent Study includes Spanish among the foreign language options.
•   FSI a site hosting some public domain Foreign Service Institute language lessons.
•   Live Lingua another FSI language site. Also has one on one language lessons ($).
•  CARLA Spanish links
• Your local library might also include a lanugage learning option.

•   Dr. Vicar's American Sign Language University -- Lots of signs demonstrated with short videos.
•   ASL.ms Fingerspelling tool
•   lesson tutor
•   ASL Course that needs ASL at Work
•   Start ASL provides free and subscription courses

•  French Interactive at University of Texas at Austin
•  Center for Open Educational Resources and Language Learning
•   DuoLingo - free and subscription language learning.
•   French in Action
•  ModernStates French CLEP review
•   CARLA French Resources list

•  Irasshai
•   DuoLingo - free and subscription language learning.
•   COER II

•  ModernStates CLEP review
•   CARLA German resource links
•  Amazon German site search for bestseller gratis or similar in the Kindle-shop for the free ebooks.

•  Cornell Russian has resources including videos.
•  Beginner's Russian
•  Learning Russian Free Russian course
•  RussianPod101 has a small amount of free content and more for subscription fees.

•  BrazilPod at UT
•  ClicaBrasil at UT
•  Portuguese Exercises at University of Minnesota - part of   Less Commonly Taught Languages Project
•  Physics in portuguese
•  Quizlet sets for ponto de encontro
•  Quizlet set
  For more quizlet sets just search on quizlet.com for your text or create your own.
•  Comic Books - for sale
•  italki suggestions of TV and movies

•  MIT Living Wage cost of living calculator for different parts of the country
•   YNAB The Four Rules - YNAB is a purchase app, but these four rules will teach you more than most people understand about personal finance.
• Feedthepig.org went away, but the American institute of CPAs put out Financial Literacy
•   High School Financial Planning Program
•  Washington State Curriculum ListList of free and paid programs for high school students
•   NEA Financial Literacy Links for k-12
•   Personal Finance Merit Badge Worksheet  Scout shop  Merit Badge Pamphlet from Amazon
  The merit badge pamplet packs a lot of information in a small easy to carry book and is inexpensive. It can be used to gain information by any age whether or not they are a scout.
•   KhanAcademy Finance and capital markets
•   Life of Fred Financial Choices is an easy to read presentation of basic finances.

From Annenberg Learner:
•  Dynamic Earth Interactive
•   Earth Revealed
•   The Habitable Planet
•  SERC guide
•  MIT OCW Earth, Atmospheric, and Planetary Science Courses

•  Open Textbook Library Concepts of Biology
•   Biology 2e
•   Siyavula Books Link
•   CK-12 Biology
•  Khan Academy Biology
•  MIT OCW Biology
•   CMU Life Sciences(independent Learners)

•  MIT OCW Chemistry
•  Khan Academy Chemistry

•  MIT OCW Physics
•  Khan Academy Physics 1
•   Rice AP Physics1
Note: AP Physics 1& 2 ® are both algebra based which means that these provide an opportunity to see if that algebra was mastered. However by limiting the content to algebra instead of calculus the student sometimes has to memorize formulas without full explanation where the formula could often be derived with the math of calculus available. Some colleges will not grant degree credit for the algebra based sequence.
•  National Science Foundation
•  California State University Northridge links
•   PHET simulations
•  American Association of Physics Teachers
•  the Physics Classroom
•  Hyper Physics
•  tutor4physics solved problems
•  Fear of Physics

Hobbies can bring joy and pleasure to learning and life and span all areas of interests. If you have particular hobby books of interest please feel free to share them.

•  Complete Cat Care Manual

•  The New Complete Dog Book If you want to read about all the AKC registered breeds in one spot any version of this book will be a good reference.

•  Toward the P.H.D. for dogs: Obedience training from novice through utility This is an excellent manual to describe the process of dog training.
•   Cesar's Way  Cesar Millan from the Dog Whisperer tv show has multiple training books.
•   Dog Training My Way by Barbara Woodhouse  Barbara Woodhouseof the Training Dogs the Woodhouse way also has multiple training books.

•  Gerbils Gerbils and hamsters make excellent first pets.
•  Hamsters
•  Guinea Pigs are also fun pets. Some guinea piggies actually sing. While hardy pets, they have delicate digestions and if the piggy refuses to eat for a day intervention might be warranted.