March 6, 2009
Should I homeschool?
My daughter is in public school in 2nd grade. She is not doing as well as I know she can and I have been considering homeschooling her. Currently, her teacher is recommending summer school with even the potential of being held back. I have considered pulling her out of school now and sort of starting 2nd grade over to have her catch up by the fall. Is it better to wait for the end of the school year and work from there or try to get started now? I didn't know if you had any advice?
While off the top of my head - and even with this limited amount of information - my answer would be yes, since this mom lived in driving distance, I suggested we get together to talk about her situation.
I'm sharing it now because as we enter spring, many people are facing similar issues with recommendations for ESY (Extended School Year, which is public school lingo for summer school - after all, why use the three- syllable name everyone understands when you can replace it with a bureaucratic label with two syllables more :)
Here is situation this mother faced:
She'd sent a child with no learning difficulties off to school and by second grade the teacher was sending home instructions for all the stuff she needed to do to help her daughter keep up with the class. Her daughter was in the lowest reading group - which no matter how they try to avoid labeling, the children always understand to be the lowest.
Mom had begun wondering why - if the teacher expected her to do all this work at home - she should even send her daughter to school. Why not just keep her home and do the work with her herself?
Why not, indeed?
As a mom who's had experience with homeschool and public school, I will tell you unequivocally: no matter how wonderful your local public school system (and I'm a big fan of Loudoun's) when it comes to academics, children in elementary grades will learn more and better at home.
There's simply no way around the facts. The elementary school curriculum can be easily done at home in three hours per day, and yet sending your child to public school takes them away from home for 7-9 hours.
Read the rest here
No comments:
Post a Comment