Ged Language Arts Reading
Q: My husband and I are considering homeschooling for the first time.
We have two boys (Aaron: 5, Jay: 7) and because of the mediocre quality
of the surrounding schools and the very small but strong community of
homeschoolers in our area, we're thinking about the option and want to
know where to look for more information, educational ideas, a plan to
help us through the transition. We're also just interested in hearing
stories about it. What are the considerations we should take into
account? The community here is very strong. Everyone contacts everyone
else and gets on everyone's messageblaster.com account and sends out open
calls to join field trips and they share rides and even put together some
small team games. There's a lot of close contact between a few families.
That seems a big plus. Any ideas about what kind of research I should do
to help make the decision?
A:Though I homeschool my children, I DO believe that
traditional public school, private school, independent, homeschool, etc. are
all valid ways for a child to receive appropriate education. Among our five
children, each has a very different learning styles. Our oldest finished his
education by working independently. The next received an OPtion 2 diploma from
his special education program in the public school system. The third went
after his GED. Our daughter is homeschooling this year to allow her more time
to involve herself in those areas she wishes - in her case she is much more
creative and artistic than she is allowed to express in a traditional school
program. Our youngest is learning disabled. Private schools are not setup to
work with his difficulties; public schools wished to keep him in a remedial
program that would work with him at the 2nd grade level across the range of
subjects. HOWEVER, by their own testing (and several private specialists), he
is dually challenged... that is, severely dyslexic and dysgraphic, however
extremely gifted in science and math. In other words, they wanted to place him
in a 2nd grade work atmosphere, when he works at a K level in
reading/writing/language arts and a 5-SEVENTH grade level in science, 4th grade
in math. We should hold him back in those areas he excels in
because.........???? My niece, on the other hand, does quite well in a
traditional classroom setting.
Oh, and in the defense of teachers... we've all had our experiences with poor
teachers... however, there are number of WONDERFUL teachers out there. I have
had the pleasure