Gabe and homeschool

Gabe and homeschool
Originally uploaded by elliemom. The veracity with which the California appellate court put down homeschooling was almost comical to me in some ways. Getting a quality education was not among the reasons they listed for requiring all children to attend public school. I agree with Glen Beck, that was a glaring omission!

Many times when a kid is struggling in school the parents are encouraged to provide tutoring with more one-on-one instruction. Ironically that type of education happens DAILY in the homeschool setting, and kids benefit from it.

My third son Gabe has definitely benefited this year to a structure and curriculum that was more suited to his development and needs. Gabe had struggled with learning his math facts and had become somewhat of a lazy reader, so my two goals this year with him were to bring him up to speed on his math lessons and improve his reading speed and comprehension.

During the first semester I would have to say most of his math work was a D or worse. By Christmas time he had improved that to about a C level. By working with him daily I determined that he could calculate actual math problems as written in the book (as long as he carefully transcribed the problem to his work paper). But his real problem was with handling story problems. For weeks now I have worked each story problem in his Saxon math book with him, trying to help him figure out on his own what he had to do to come up with the answer, slowly but surely he’s getting it and now he is to the point where all of his work is at about a B level, although one day this week he only missed one problem! We definitely have made some progress.

The prescription for his lazy and careless reading (which might also be why he has problems with story problems) has been to have him slow down and read aloud to me like he did when he was younger. I have seen progress there too and I am hoping by summer time, I can end the individual reading and have him reading library books on his own that he find enjoyable. I’m thinking Gabe my have a Hardy Boy summer!

I wonder what would have happened to Gabe if he had been stuck in a class with 20 or more students and whether these problems would have festered until high school or later!

And while I know there are great public schools and great private schools and that many kids do great outside of homeschooling, its still irksome that private tutoring in the home (which is homeschooling) is still not considered by some in the legal system to be a legitimate method of learning!