When you’re homeschooling in a state with little or no outside regulation for homeschoolers, how do you know that your child is on track? How do you know if they are keeping up with their public school peers? Are they ahead or behind? Are they learning what they should?
We have personally seen how military kids who transfer from one public (or private) school to the next with each pcs move can be ahead in one state but behind in another. In one state certain subjects are taught in X grade while in other states it is taught in Y grade. This can throw even the best of students off their game. (Another reason why the stability of homeschooling works for us.)
My point? What it means to be on track varies according to where you are located and who you are talking to at the time. Standardized tests are available, but they do not really test what the kids are learning (even in the public school systems). The questions are based upon what somebody thinks they should know not necessarily what they are being taught.
Some of the ways we can see how our kids are doing compared to their peers include:
- looking at the curriculum scope and sequence
- checking to see what is being taught in certain grades in the local schools
- having assessments done by a third party
Depending on the homeschool regulations for your state, you may have to do testing, assessments, and/or portfolios to show proof of progress. Even if you don’t have to do these things, you may decide that you want to have outside verification so you can see weaknesses in your child’s education.
For Munchkin, we have chosen to move at her pace. That means in some subjects she is way ahead of her public/private school peers, while in other subjects she’s on track/or, at times, behind. When she was younger, I used books such as What your XX grader needs to know to get an idea of where she should be. I also pulled out the scope and sequence for different curriculum. As we’ve moved along in our homeschooling journey, I’ve realized that if we move at her pace, she learns exactly what she needs to learn in her own time.
This post is part of the TOS Blog Cruise.
Thanks for sharing this…this concept always seems to run through the mind as the schoolyear progresses. I also like to check the "WorldBook" curriculum standards for general reference.
Good one. I've been rolling my ideas around in my mind and hope to get them on my blog later today. I can tell we share the same opinions about this topic!
Great Post and Very good Advice we do about the same thing here in our home Blessings Love Heather
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Good post. I like reading what others have to say about homeschooling topics. I hope others besides those already on the crew are blessed by our posting these Blog Cruise questions and answers.
"Exactly what she needs to learn…" oooh, love the phrasing. That sounds perfect.
I had some of the same thoughts on my own post. Very succinctly stated. (I always do tend to be wordy.) 🙂
We have homeschooled for 11 years and have moved as often as some military families, so I understand your concerns. However, we found it helpful to set goals for each of our students and measure their success against the goal rather than other public school children. As a former public school teacher, I recognized early on that the standards in public school were very low. Of course we consulted each state's required courses and what our high school students would be expected to have taken upon graduating, but we never compared our kids to other public school kids.
Thank you for your service to our country!
Karen,
We do set goals for Munchkin, but we're moving at her pace. I'm sorry if my post came across like we had no goals in mind.
We also have certain requirements that we have set up that she will have to complete in order to graduate from our homeschool.
Thanks for stopping by. 🙂