How My Child Improved the 1st Year of Homeschooling, and What I Learned from Homeschool Experts

Written in 2017

First of all, I want to mention that I am in no way an expert in homeschooling. I acknowledge that I am a novice homeschooling parent, and I’m barely scratching the surface of frontier home-based educating. There are many parents out there who have been doing this for years, and I am still in the beginning stages of forming my own pedagogy.

I am simply awe struck by the results of our first year, and I am excited to share my experience with those who are curious about homeschooling. According to the National Home Education Research Institute (NHERI), homeschool students score 15 to 30 percentile points above their public school counterparts on standardized achievement tests and typically above average on the SAT and ACT tests. These facts show that homeschooling works. It’s no wonder that the number of homeschooling students is steadily growing in the U.S. and is “bordering on mainstream” as compared to the past when it was a rare alternative to public school.

I hope our story will be an encouragement to those who may be frustrated with the ways of public school and are seeking to provide their children the best form of education; moreover, I hope they will find all their efforts worth it!

How it Began

The desire to homeschool my daughter first came to me when I was working full time. I was working as a medical assistant at an OB/GYN medical office while my daughter stayed at a daycare for 8 hours a day, 5 days a week. Although I’ve always wanted to have my own career, my heart was slowly breaking with the thought of leaving my child, then barely 3 years old, for 8 hours at a time with people I barely knew. The caregivers and teachers were constantly rotating, so I didn’t even know if she had a consistent teacher who can closely monitor her behavior and development.

It was not easy being a full time worker while trying to balance things at home. I would come home exhausted on weekdays, and my weekends were filled with trying to catch up on housework. I rarely found quality time with my family. I started to envy moms who stayed at home and began to resent my job as a result. I dreamt of what it might be like to stay at home full time. The best hours of my day could be spent caring for my home and family. Then that was when the idea of homeschooling first came to me. Homeschooling my child will be most rewarding and worth all my efforts.

This was no easy decision, but I’ve never had a stronger conviction than before. There were uncertainties, of course, such as finances – could we afford to live on one income? Do I have what it takes to homeschool my child? What if I completely ruin her life? One thing was for sure: the more I prayed over the matter, the more I felt convinced it was what God wanted me to do. Scriptures in the Bible, like Titus 2, were my catalysts for change. The Apostle Paul instructs his younger colleague Titus to teach the older women to train the younger women “to love their husbands and children, to be self-controlled and pure, to be busy at home, to be kind, and to be subject to their husbands, so that no one will malign the word of God.” I want to be careful with this use of passage as I know it can be easily misunderstood. We live in a culture where feminism has a strong presence and where careers outside of the home are highly esteemed. I also understand that women have to do different things in different seasons of their lives, and for some it means working outside the home. The message for me, however, was clear: to stay home is a high and holy calling for Christian women, and our families should be prioritized. Today, it has been 4 years since I chose to quit my job and stay home with my kids. It is the best decision I have ever made.

Our First Year

So how did our first year of homeschooling go? In spite of my inexperience, we managed to establish a daily rhythm of learning and playing that makes up Addie’s usual school day. Although she is technically in Kindergarten, I have had the freedom and resources to choose whatever suited Addie’s academic level through our homeschooling program Visions in Education. I decided to teach 1st grade curriculum in all her subjects. As we approach the end of the school year, Addie, to our amazement, has excelled in several areas of school including reading, writing, math, science, and even athletics. Daily one-on-one attention has definitely contributed to her success; however, I attribute her performance mostly to the sacrifice we made as a family: choosing to live on one income so I can stay home and cultivate a learning experience based on a loving parent-child relationship.

Reading

First, her reading skills have improved exponentially since the beginning of the school year. We started Addie out with level 1 books along with familiarizing her with certain sight words. Since then, she went from practicing flash cards to reading chapter books, sometimes at the third grade level. We spent at least 15 minutes a day in the morning reading together, helping her with the pronunciation and definition of certain words. Now, she loves to pick certain chapter books from the library to read on her own before bedtime. I believe that because of the one-on-one close scaffolding that homeschooling provides, she was able to accelerate her reading skills quickly.

Math

With Addie now reading on her own, I can assign her math worksheets and certain pages from her math book to complete on her own, then I walk away. I encourage her to read the directions herself and see if she can solve problems on her own. If a question was too difficult, she could skip it and move on to other problems. I correct her work after and work on any of the problems she struggled with together. The purpose of this activity is to train her to work and problem solve independently. Just this past March, we started learning multiplication. Through homeschooling, we have the freedom to advance when she is ready, not when the public school says she can.

Writing

I would have to say that writing is her least favorite activity of our homeschooling curriculum. It is one of the first things we do in our day to get it done and out of the way. Amusingly, she loathes the necessary attention to details of capital letters, punctuation, and proper grammar. One thing I noticed, however, is that Addie is most creative with her writing when I step away. One time, completely on her own, she sat outside to observe our first backyard chickens. She ended up writing her first essay on how she loved them – complete with all the components of a paragraph structure!

Science

Science has become one of the more exciting subjects to me, probably more so than Addie. Although her limited interest in this particular subject is common, science projects have become a family effort. For example, when we reached the unit on plants, I got into gardening myself. My husband built a generously large raised garden bed for us and had Addie help with the measurements. We planted strawberries, onions, tomatoes, cucumbers, and cantaloupe. Only a few plants survived our first attempt at gardening; however, we learned much along the way!

Athletics

This is one area, I believe, that homeschool has proven very beneficial for Addie.  If you think about the PE program for kindergarteners and 1st graders, most activities are organized for groups or the class as a whole. Teachers favor fun group games such as sharks and minnows, duck-duck-goose, group sports, etc. In contrast, Addie’s PE curriculum is tailored to her individual interests and athletic ability. Instead of having to participate in a group activity, Addie can spend that time to excel in a sport of her choosing. She started out with gymnastics once a week and soccer in the fall. Soon, she discovered her passion for gymnastics and that she had quite a gift for it. In fact, she has become convinced that she wants to be a “gymnastics star” and compete on the olympic level!

Wanting to follow a “delight-directed” approach to homeschooling, we have made the study and practice of gymnastics as part of our curriculum. She has taken this desire to heart and practices her skills almost on a daily basis. Because she is very ambitious, she has mastered many skills and has already advanced two levels faster than we expected.

Homeschooling Can Help a Child Excel in Sports

Apparently, homeschooling can give students an upper hand when it comes to sports. Journalist and author Gregory Millman wrote in is book Homeschooling: A Family’s Journey, that homeschoolers don’t have to be excluded from competitive sports; in fact, some have become competitive on the collegiate and professional level. Millman writes:

“Barred from the public school athletic teams, homeschoolers built their own teams. Then the teams became leagues, and the leagues proved competitive with the best athletes from the conventional school system. As a result, many homeschooled children have gone to college on athletic scholarships and a few have become draft picks for professional teams” (Millman 176).

Likewise, Addie has an advantage as a homeschooler than most of her peers to excel in her chosen sport due to the time and one-on-one coaching (from me) homeschooling provides to develop her skills. Gymnastics could very well be the sport she performs in college.

Hopeful for the Future

Because I am seeing first hand, almost immediately, the positive effects that homeschooling can do for a child, my husband and I are convinced that homeschooling is the best way to educate our children; and as long as we are able, we will continue to homeschool.

Millman, who homeschooled all six of his children, argues that homeschool students are at their best because public school “regulations don’t put a damper on their creativity and initiative” (Millman 174). He continues to explain: “From the unmanaged initiative of homeschoolers, a parallel educational system has emerged, one with results much more impressive than those of the public school system, and by and large even superior to private schools” (Millman 175).

One of the best examples of this I’ve seen is the Harding family. In her book The Brainy Bunch, co-author and homeschooling mom Mona Lisa Harding shares her own experience with homeschooling all ten of her children. Along with her husband, they have developed a pedagogy in their home where their children are ready to attend college by age twelve. Because their family is free from the restraints of the public school, each Harding child is allowed to accelerate at his or her own pace. And the results are impressive! One of their sons, Heath Harding, earned his BA in English at age 15 and his MS in computer science at age 17.

In contrast, Harding and her husband Kip describes the present state of our public schools:

There is a lot of ‘dumbing down’ going on in the American school… Kids are not allowed to learn at their own pace in public and most private schools. Many kids get bored in school because the teacher has to teach to the middle of the class. He or she cannot move forward with the kids who are ready to move and doesn’t have time to really help the kids who are falling behind.

Harding xiv

Likewise, I believe certain public school policies, such as age requirements, would have “put a damper” on Addie’s potential. She would be forced to complete two years of kindergarten instead of one, slowing her down with the rest of the class. Although I understand that the age policy is necessary and that it works for many families, my daughter just couldn’t fit into its mold.

In contrast, Millman writes, “Homeschooling can adapt its pedagogy and curriculum to each child, proceeding at the pace and in the manner best suited to his or her personality.” And this is definitely one of the most powerful benefits of homeschooling. I can testify to this because I have seen my daughter thrive just in the first year.

Conclusion

My purpose in writing this is not to boast how great I think my kid is; in fact, she is very much like every other 6-year old girl. Rather, my hope is to encourage other parents who are looking into other alternatives to public schools and are curious about homeschooling. We are learning that it is very much a family effort and will require time and sacrifice. For us, it meant choosing to live on one income so I can stay home full time. It requires me to be purposeful with my time and to be looking for ways to learn and improve my methods constantly. This is my word of encouragement: it is worth it!