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How do you know your child is learning?
- This topic has 4 replies, 5 voices, and was last updated 12 years, 2 months ago by
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Of all the difficult remarks I’ve been hearing lately about homeschooling, this one gets me kind of stumped.
When people (complete strangers and even my family) pass judgement and give unwanted advice on my family’s decisions, I usually feel confident and have answers, but when people ask how do you know your child is learning at the level they should be I really feel like I don’t know how to answer that. Where I live they are pretty hands off for homeschoolers, which I actually like, but since they do not do testing for them and I obviously can’t know what they are teaching the kids in the public schools here I feel like people are right when they say that to me.
How do you know that your child is learning what they should be? What do you expect them to know at a specific age?
Since I am not a fan of testing I refuse to test my children…but this is jut me 🙂 Having a child with special needs has taught me to stop comparing my kid to othes (since he will always be different no matter what) and just use him as a standard measure. As long as I see improvement I am happy. Of course, what improvement means to me it’s not the same to you…so following a “list” would not work and that is why I dont believe in those. I’m pretty sure you are doing an great job and your kids are getting a much better education than if they were in a PS.
Well, Charlotte did have lists of accomplishments for kids, things like “identify 5 bird calls” which I think we will never achieve. But I also think with a CM education, results can be slower to see. It is about forming relations and that takes a while to build and is hard to measure. But then your kid remembers something you learned before and makes a connection to something new and it is wonderful. I do think in general with homeschooling though testing is not needed because you do know what your kid knows. Testing in schools is for the teachers or administrators, not the kids. As for meeting where they should be for their grade, one of the big benefits of homeschool is that they can work at the pace that suits them.
Nebby
Although I wouldn’t say this to someone – you probably know more about what your child knows than many PS parents (even fairly involved ones) know about what their child knows….
I see two different questions in your post. First, “How do I know that my child is learning?” Well, I know because I’m there with each of them for every single lesson. I hear them read aloud, so I know how fluently they can read. I hear them narrate, so I know what they picked up from each reading. I see their copywork and math work, so I know what they can and cannot do. We haven’t done term exams yet (just finished year 1 and I didn’t see them as necessary), but we will this year, so I’ll be able to see how much they have retained.
The second question, “How do I know that my children are learning what they should be?” depends on how you look at it. My answer to most people who ask is that I know (by the above methods) how well my children are learning what *I and my DH* decided that they should be learning. I don’t particularly care what anyone else thinks about what my children *should* be learning. We are their parents, we know what we value, we know our children and their individual strengths and weaknesses, and I don’t worry about what some government organization has decided they should learn. Besides, I know that what we are learning FAR exceeds what they would be learning in the equivalent grade at school. I’ve looked at the curriculum expectations for our province. There is no comparison. Also, beyond basic literacy skills, it is fairly unimportant what order the other subjects are learned. For science, what does it matter if they learn about plants, animals, weather patterns, or or light and colours first? For history, does it really matter what order they learn things? For math, does it matter whether you learn about shapes first or how to use a ruler?
One the other hand, if you ARE concerned about how your education plan compares to what other children their ages would be learning, just find out what the expectations for their grades would be. Our province’s curriculum is all online for anyone to use. Check to see if your state has the same thing available. If not, there are places to find a general guideline. One option is http://www.worldbook.com/typical-course-of-study?wbredirect=1&Itemid=216
If it’s just other people’s questions that concern you, just plan for how you will tactfully tell them not to worry, you have it under control, and then move forward with your plans.
Joanne
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