Which curriculum should I chose? Where do I begin? These are questions we are asked almost daily. Really, there is no one-size-fits-all solution. There are as many different ways to Homeschool as there are Homeschoolers. What's important is finding a curriculum that is proven successful, will meet your child's needs, and that you can realistically manage as a parent.
Getting feedback regarding various curriculums from experienced Homeschoolers is very valuable. Anyone who has Homeschooled more than a year will have strong opinions regarding the curriculums they have tried. While these opinions are valuable for information gathering, remember that you are free to make your own choices. It is easy to become discouraged when you feel pressured to use a particular solution, which may have worked wonderful for other families but isn't necessarily a good fit for you or your student.
Please do not be discouraged if all your Homeschool friend's children are excelling in the particular curriculum but your child is not. Finding curriculum that will help your child excel is what is important. Independence and the ability to cater to the needs of your student is what makes Homeschooling so successful.
This guide is a brief introduction to curriculum selection. It is not meant to be inclusive of every approach to Homeschooling. It is based on our typical recommendations to the questions asked above. Sometimes the perfect fit for your family may be determined through some trial and error.
Assessing Your Student: Our first recommendation is to determine your student's mode of learning. Very simply, does your child learn best by:
- Visual Learning (learn by seeing)
- Auditory Learning (learn by hearing)
- Kinesthetic Learning or Practical (learn by doing)
Students use all three methods to learn. However, one or more of these learning styles is normally dominant. The dominant style defines the best way for a person to learn new information.
Visual learners are usually linguistic and/or spatial. Learners who are visual-linguistic like to learn through written language, such as reading and writing tasks. They often remember what has been written down, even if they do not read it more than once. They like to write down directions and pay better attention to lessons if they can watch them. Learners who are visual-spatial usually have difficulty with written language and do better with charts, demonstrations, videos, and other visual materials. They easily visualize faces and places by using their imagination and seldom get lost in new surroundings.
Auditory learners often talk to themselves. They also may move their lips and read out loud. They may have difficulty with reading and writing tasks. They often do better talking and hearing what was said.
Kinesthetic learners do best while touching and moving. They tend to lose concentration if there is little or no external stimulation or movement. They may like to jump or squeeze a ball while learning. They may want to take notes. When reading, they like to scan the material first, and then focus in on the details (get the big picture first). They often like taking notes by drawing pictures, diagrams, or doodling.
Regardless of the curriculum you choose, knowing your child's strongest mode of learning will help you tailor the learning experience to best meet their needs.
Placement Tests: We recommend taking the publisher's placement test (if available) when you are ready to purchase a curriculum. This will help you know what grade level to place them in. It is not uncommon for a student to place one or two grades below their expected grade level if the student is coming from a public school environment.
Grade levels are recommendations to provide us with a point of reference. Most important is that your student is working on material that challenges them by not being too easy but does not frustrate them by being to difficult. Testing them prior to placement will help insure their success.
Structured Curriculums: These are turn-key multi-subject, multi-grade curriculums. Everything you need to Homeschool your child are generally included in the grade level kits. The material taught in each subject usually coincides with the other subjects in that grade level to provide an integrated learning experience. We generally recommend new Homeschool parents use a structured curriculum to begin with until they are comfortable with their new role as Home educator.
Some curriculums are designed for students to work independently with the idea that the student is on their own to learn the material. An example of this would be the curriculum published by
ACE/School of Tomorrow. Using ACE, students work independently to complete twelve workbooks/subject/grade level. The workbooks (PACE) are usually 30-50 pages in length. Students set daily goals of 3-5 pages/day. At the end of the PACE, the student takes a final test in order to demonstrate an understanding of the material. The student is responsible to learn the material but parental supervision is required to oversee the scoring and for record keeping. But the parent is not required to teach the material. This is a great solution for parents with limited time constraints or who are intimidated by teaching. It also works well for students who work better on their own.
On the opposite side of the spectrum are teaching curriculums which were designed to be taught to the student. The Homeschool curriculum published by
BJU Press would be an example of this. BJU is designed to be taught to the student. Therefore, using BJU curriculum will require more parent-teacher involvement than an independent curriculum like ACE. BJU's teacher guides provide lesson plans, answers, teaching ideas to help the parent-teacher teach the material. This would be a great choice for a parent who would enjoy teaching or for a student who does better with a little coaching.
Answer Keys & Helps: We are occasionally asked if answer keys are needed for each curriculum. Answer keys are recommended. The biggest reason we recommend answer keys is because of the time savings they offer. Your time is valuable. We are sure you can find the correct answers on your own but do you have the extra time to read the text to find the answers or calculate each answer? In most cases, the answer keys will more than pay for themselves if you consider the time savings broken out over the course of a year.
Let's be conservative and say that having answer keys will save you only 30 minutes a day. Over the school year of 180 days, you will save 90 hours in scoring. That's two full work weeks saved annually. If answer keys cost $300 for the full grade, it works out to about $3.33 per hour. For most of us, our time is worth much more than $3.33 and hour.
The same is true of helps like DIVE for Saxon Math. We have had parents tell us that they would work through the lessons the night before in order to teach the material, the next day. They would spend hours each night preparing for the next day. They couldn't believe how well DIVE worked in teaching the material and how much easier Homeschooling is with it. We have received the same feedback from their students who also appreciated the tutoring.
DIVE is a tutoring program designed for Saxon Math which provides comprehensive instruction for each lesson. DIVE CD's cost $45- $50. That gives you a personal tutor and saves you countless hours for less than $0.50 per lesson.
Our desire is to see parents succeed. Answer Keys and Helps definitely save time, prevent burn out and make enhance your Homeschooling experience.
Mix & Match: You may prefer mixing and matching various curriculums. For instance, you may decide to use Saxon Math, Shurley English, Mystery of History, Apologia Science, and ACE Spelling. Sometimes you may choose a structured curriculum but substitute one or two subjects with another publisher's curriculum.
Our typical recommendation is using a structured curriculum your first year, then as you become comfortable, you can experiment with one or two subjects that either interest you or that you feel would be a more appropriate fit with you child's learning style.
Remember that every child has strengths and weaknesses. Likewise, every curriculum has strengths and weaknesses. The key is matching the best curriculum to your child. Sometimes that means using curriculums from multiple publishers.
As indicated earlier, these are just some brief guidelines and recommendations that we make when asked, "Which curriculum should I chose?" or "Where do I begin?". All of our customer service personnel have Homeschool experience. We have experience with Homeschooling large multi-age families, single child families, early learning, high school, college prep, etc. Please feel free to contact us via the contact form at our Help Desk if we can be of further assistance or answer more specific questions.
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The following article was submitted to PennywiseLearning.com by Dr. Jay L Wile, author and publisher of the highly successful Apologia Science Series. To find out more about the creation-based Apologia Science, click here.
What's in YOUR Curriculum?One of the many challenges that homeschoolers face is purchasing the right curriculum for each child. Some children learn well with one curriculum, while others learn well with another. It never surprises me when I hear a mother say that she uses one math curriculum for one of her children and a completely different math curriculum for another child. That is one of the strengths of homeschooling. In a school setting, all children use one curriculum, whether it works for them or not. In homeschooling, you can tailor the curriculum to meet the needs of each individual student.
As a result of the fact that different students need different types of curriculum, a huge variety of Homeschool curricula has emerged in recent years. In the vendor hall of a fairly large convention, for example, you might find more than a dozen math programs. This is both a good and a bad thing. It is good because it gives the Homeschooler a chance to find the "perfect fit" for each of his or her children. It is bad, however, because most homeschoolers don't have time to research each curriculum thoroughly. As a result, homeschoolers can end up purchasing curricula that are inconsistent with their goals.
As a Christian Homeschooler, for example, the most important thing I wanted to teach my daughter was a Christian worldview. While I certainly wanted her to excel academically (and for the most part, she did), my main goal was to teach her to look at the world through the lens of Christianity. As a result, I did not want to use any curriculum that contradicted a Christian worldview. Thus, before I bought any curriculum, I made sure that it did not contain anti-Christian thoughts.
However, just making sure that your curriculum doesn't contradict Christianity is not enough. I did use curriculum that was rather neutral in regards to Christianity, but I used it sparingly. Why? Well, let's face it. Education is indoctrination. There is simply no way around this fact. We teach our kids what we want them to learn. This is true in every model of education, be it homeschooling, private schooling, or public schooling. Thus, you have to understand that your children will be indoctrinated by their curriculum. If you choose a lot of curriculum that is neutral in regards to Christianity, or if you choose a lot of curricula that present a lot of different worldviews, your child will get the message that worldview isn't all that important.
Think about it. A chemistry book makes quite definitive statements about which model of the atom is correct. Since we can never see the structure of an atom, we can never prove which model is correct. Nevertheless, every good chemistry textbook will tell students that the quantum mechanical model of the atom is the best model that exists. Why? Because it is important that the student knows the proper way to visualize an atom. Curricula make very strong statements about important matters, and they either make no statement about unimportant matters, or they show several different views on those matters without ever telling the student which is right. If the bulk of your curriculum doesn't make definitive statements about which worldview is correct, the student will decide that worldview is simply not all that important.
Thus, I think it is critical that the bulk of a child's curriculum comes from a Christian worldview. This, however, presents a problem. How do you know the worldview of a curriculum? You don't have time to read an entire textbook before you buy it. So how will you really know what the curriculum teaches when it comes to worldview?
Should you ask your fellow homeschoolers? Well, you certainly should, but no matter how much you respect the people you ask, you must take their opinions with a grain of salt. After all, you don't know how much they have researched the curriculum. As a result, you have no idea how well-informed their opinions are. There is a lot of misinformation that passes through homeschooling circles simply because people believe their fellow homeschoolers uncritically.
For example, I have seen internet message boards and heard firsthand reports of conversations that are filled with false statements about me and my curriculum. People have claimed that my curriculum teaches only intelligent design and not creationism (false), that my curriculum is not rigorous enough for college preparation (students who use my courses end up winning awards and tutoring their fellow students in college), that I put my children back in school after homeschooling them for a little while (I have only one child, and she did not go back to school once I started homeschooling her), and so on. Even a small amount of research would show that these statements are false. Nevertheless, some homeschoolers believe them because they do not take the time to find the answers themselves. Please note that some of these false statements have been made by leaders in the homeschooling movement. Thus, the stature of the person to whom you speak means little. The important thing is the level of knowledge that the person has regarding the specific curriculum you are considering.
Thus, talking to your fellow homeschoolers is only useful if those fellow homeschoolers are informed. My first piece of advice, then, is to talk to people who have actually used the curriculum. Don't listen to people who say, "I heard that..." Talk to people who have experience using the curriculum, as they are the ones who know it best.
Second, if you can get to a convention or store that has the book, take time to look in the index for key topics. In a science book, for example, you should look at the index to see how many times God (or the Creator) is mentioned. If evolution is mentioned, flip to those pages to see what the book says about it. If creation is mentioned, flip to those pages to see what the book says about it. The index is a wonderful tool to get a "snapshot" of a book's position on key issues that are important to you. In my opinion, when shopping for a curriculum, you should START with the index.
Third, read curriculum reviews from trusted sources. Although a curriculum reviewer is not as knowledgeable about a curriculum as someone who has actually used it, an experienced reviewer knows what to look for. In addition, an experienced reviewer can compare the curriculum to other curricula that cover the same material. This will help you get an idea of what else is available and how the curriculum you are considering "stands up" against its competition.
Fourth, ask detailed questions of the publisher or the publisher's representative. If you are going to purchase a curriculum, you should be serviced as a customer. Thus, just as you would ask detailed questions to the owner of a house that you are considering purchasing, you should ask detailed questions to the publisher of any curriculum you are considering.
Finally, pray about your decisions. God speaks to us through His still, small voice. If you listen, He can guide you in your decisions. Make no mistake about it: God cares about what your child is learning, and He will help you if you listen to Him.
This may seem like a lot of work. However, as I have already said, education is a form of indoctrination. There is no way around that. As a result, it is worth the work to make sure you are indoctrinating your children in the worldview that God wants for them!
Dr. Jay L. Wile
Apologia Educational Ministries
www.highschoolscience.com
To find out more about the creation-based Apologia Science,
click here.
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