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To do or not to do that is the question
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I would love advice about embracing CM approach next year. We have four children that homeschool ages 5, 7, 9, and 14. We have used nearly every curriculum under the sun over the years or so it seems. There have been things that worked perfectly for some children while not as well for others. Then factor in my style or time constraints which brings me here to get advice. My eldest child has always been a struggling learner. This year the growth has been tremendous but sadly she is behind. She struggles with reading comprehension tremendously. Many times she can answer the difficult questions on a test but the most basic, simple instructions confuse her. She will ask me after reading instructions such as underline the participle phrase and circle the participle what exactly they want her to do regardless of whether there is an example or not. The way she rephrases the instructions will be slightly different but for some reason one makes sense to her and the other does not.
I came across Wayfarer curriculum and really liked the ease of it. We took two weeks to try it out and while I loved it and see how much it would streamline our homeschooling, it was a mixed bag with the kids. My 9 yr old took to it perfectly and begged to keep it. She has always excelled at listening, reading, dictation, narration, etc. My 7 yr old found it boring but didn’t complain much. He loves workbooks and grades.My teen hated it. She struggled to give a narration that was even close to the one my 9 yr old can give. Her dictation skills was average while her comprehension question answers were way below average. The answers would be close but not quite right. My younger kids could do a better job. She couldn’t seem to grasp ideas unless it was spelled out exactly for her. Ex. The sky is a beautiful shade of blue.she could tell you the color but if the story stated the azure sky was the shade of the lead character’s eyes, she would not be able to figure it out even if the blue eyes were mentioned previously in the story. For this reason, I am torn as to whether I should change to a CM program. I don’t want her to get further behind. I see growth in the teacher intensive work she does now but it doesn’t seem to be helping her comprehension or reasoning skills. I can see how CM style could force her to work more on the skills she fails at. Or she could continue to fail. Round and round I go.
Regardless, it is so difficult for me to find the time to do all the work I have with all the kids being at different levels and curriculum. I know that Wayfarers would streamline everything and ensure that we actually get more science and history completed rather than it being so hard to complete in the year. Let’s not even discuss how many times we have dropped art, computer, etc because we couldn’t get to it. Overall the current curriculums are working well but it is so hard to juggle and taylor to each individual’s needs. Ex. many times I have trouble speeding up a program for my 7 yr old to fit his capabilities because I have so much left to do with siblings. Many times it is easier to have him complete the work he is assigned regardless of the fact that he grasped the idea lessons ago and could have moved on if only I had time to adjust things. He is at grade level but I know he could have passed up a large portion if only I had more time to teach him the difficult things ahead or prepare and plan. Understand?
If you have made it this far, please advise me as to whether you would change or leave well enough alone and keep trudging through like it is? One more thing, if I chose not to change due to 7 yr olds love for workbooks/grades and teens dislike and weaknesses with this style, I am not teaching to my 9 yr old’s strengths either. Seems like 9 yr old and myself is on one side and two others on the opposite with 5 yr old caught in the middle or nearly left out. Would love your advice.
It sounds like you’ve been all over the map and the kids are all over the map in what they prefer. 🙂 What we’ve found is that with a gap between our oldest student and our next oldest (plus all the others right after him) we often separate my oldest into what she needs to be doing and group the rest, who are closer in age, together. (The difference this year was 9th grader, then 5th grader, 4th grader, 2nd grader, 1st grader, with 4 younger boys below that.) We keep us all in the same time period for history but use different books for varying ages as our readings, etc.
If I were in your situation I would probably do this:
1. Choose something and be consistent. No more curriculum hopping. That is probably more harmful/disruptive for your kids education than keeping them in a not exactly perfect fit curriculum for a school year. In general I try not to curriculum hop midyear, I save that for each new year, and we slog through with our choice for the year, adapting where we need to but not jumping ship to something else all together.
2. Decide what your goals and your daughter’s goals are. In high school she needs to be invested, there needs to be a plan of where she’s going and what she wants to accomplish in her remaining years at home. Does she want to be able to apply to a particular college or move into a specific training or field? Then what areas does she need to strengthen over the next 3 years? Chose 1-2 areas to really work on improving in the next 6 months to a year. Then another 1-2 areas for the next 6 months to a year. Repeat. What you may find is that to meet her needs and goals she will use materials that will not fit the rest of the family. That’s ok. At her age it is a good time to become more independent and if she has weak areas that really need work (everyone does!) then now is the time to make the effort to improve. Start where she is, not where you wish she was.
3. Now once you have your high schooler’s plan done look at the rest of the kids as a group. They are close enough in age that except for math and language arts they can work on the exact same things (so one history for all, one science for all, one poet or composer or art for all, etc). What one thing will you use for their group history studies? What will you use for group science? You get the idea. And the 5 year old doesn’t need to be doing school yet so let go of any guilt you feel about that and just let them participate in the readings and science when they feel like it. ((HUGS))
Does that help? You can do it so many different ways, hopefully others will chime in with their suggestions. This is just how I would probably do it.
I don’t have any advice for your question, but I wanted to recommend a book to you–The Myth of Laziness. It talks about identifying different types of learning challenges and ways to help your child with each type. Reading about your 15 yo’s struggles brought this book to mind and I think it might be helpful for you (and her).
Thank you for the advice. I looked up the book suggestion and ordered immediately. Maybe it will help. I know my daughter is highly intelligent and capable but she has a different way of learning. She amazes me daily the things she can achieve. She finds things that she is interested in an tackles them head on until she not only understands but masters it. She has competed in numerous judo competitions and won first place in all taking second in the ones she competes up a level. At the age of 10 she won a major award that we didn’t even know existed as it is voted on by Sensei’s throughout our state. At 14 she helps train younger judo students and teach women’s fitness because of her abilities and personality. At 13 she began studying hairstyles and by 14 has already styled a prom and three people’s wedding hair with one being the bride. I showed my stylist her instagram and she was amazed at the professional work she was doing and asked if she could help out in a pinch if they need her. She began a summer job last year which required serving customers and handling money transactions. She was slow at the beginning but now can do it better than the older workers according to the boss. Besides all of that, she is sought after in soccer with our local school asking us yearly to allow her to play with the public school’s team. This year in spite of her struggles academically, she wanted to try acting and joined an older student class for a month and loved it. She had trouble with some of the reading but worked hard until she was able to do it spot on. Her improv skills improved as well. Many times I think her best way to learn is “unschooling” even though this doesn’t work for us as a family. As for her future goals, she wants to act but knows this is a long shot. She said she would be completely happy running her own dojo or even hair salon. Of course this could all change but those are good goals that she would have no problem accomplishing.
As for our curriculum jumping, we always finished out the year before trying another with the exception of Wayfarer. I tried that one out during our Easter/Spring Break so it wouldn’t interrupt our regular schooling. we have two older children that homeschooled as well and found out quickly that their curriculum was a bust for her. She is a completely different type of learner and honestly personality from either of them. If I am being honest the other curriculum that we tried may not have failed if we had tried it later. The biggest issue with her was her inability to learn to read regardless of how we approached it. She was such a late reader that it held her back in every subject for so long. New things seem to take her twice as long to learn but once she learns it, it sticks. She seems to have to mull it over and experience it different ways to really understand. She was 11 before she could remember which of my husband’s sisters were which. We don’t see them often but she finally remembered by matching the red fingernail polish that one wears daily to her name. There had to be a connection that made sense to her. For some reason the face and name wasn’t good enough even with photos. It had to be something she connected the dots with. School is the same way. Once we find that connection that she can make it is perfect but many times we have to try multiple times to find the one thing she can connect the dots with and it usually isn’t the thing everyone else would see. I have been in that family for 25 yrs and never realized she always wore red polish until my dd stated this. Anyway, just wanted to clarify a few things. I really hope that the book helps. I only worried that I would be doing one or more kids a disservice if I came to CM or even if I didn’t. The main thing is I want our school to be less stressful than it is now.
I agree with Tristan. I would pick something that works for YOU; that you like the best and then just tweak it a bit for each individual child. For instance if one has a harder time reading a required book, substitute a different one. No matter what curriculum we try nothing is ever going to fit perfectly for each child. We just have to make it work as best we can. I always get flustered and stressed when switching curriculum and finally I stopped looking for different or “better” things (for the most part) and just use what I know.
I just finished reading The Right Side of Normal. This describes in detail the right-brained learner. I have a just turning 13yo girl who has struggled all her years, and although she was born with a mild form of CP, she is very intelligent in certain areas. I truly believe she fits into this type of learning. She struggles tremendously with math, although right-brained learners can be very gifted in math. She was a late reader and still not very fluent. I did have her tested and was told that her vertical brain pathways (memorizing) were good, but the horizontal pathways (understanding the concept) were several years behind. SO, her reading comprehension isn’t the greatest either. She is very gifted in art and music and she loves caring for children. She doesn’t have a good concept of time and even forgets what day of the week it is. I really believe she would have benefited in being taught the right-brained way from the beginning, but I can’t undo that now.
What I have decided for this fall is to focus on her strengths and whatever she gets otherwise, she gets. I asked her what she wants to learn in science. She said animals and landscaping. Although she learned a lot about animals, I am going to do it, just because I want to rekindle a love for learning in her. She has a strong dislike for school. I don’t know how we will accomplish landscaping, but she did some of that with her aunt recently and loved it. History will be readings and some projects from Mystery of History. What she gets, she gets. She likes living history, but putting it all together in scope of time, forget it. Grammar will be simple, and math will be real-life situations (money, measuring, and basic operations), and as suggested by the psychologist, letting her use a calculator.
Your daughter sounds like she is artistic. I think you could count her hair styling as art. Find out her favorite areas of science and maybe focus on those for a while. If she does better with workbooks, let her use those and do CM with the youngers. These are just some suggestions. I do not have any younger children, so I am free to work on things with my daughter, but I am wanting her to be more independent. We are going to focus on reading more this year. If that would improve, I think more independence would come. I am trying to figure this all out myself, so I am not sure what else to suggest. But, be assured, you are not alone. A thought. Since your daughter has been ‘in the hair business’ why not let her learn about how businesses are run. Not sure if that would be math and social studies or where that would fall. Give her things to work on that interest her. Don’t be afraid to step out of the box.
I meant to come back to this…has she ever been tested for dyslexia? That would explain her difficulty learning to read, and would still be affecting her in many ways even if she has learned to read. Dyslexic kids tend to have special talents too like your DD. The Gift of Dyslexia is a good book about both sides of dyslexia. There’s a good list of symptoms of dyslexia at http://www.dys-add.com.
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