Wannabe homeschooler

[zilya]

Kids DS 8,8 and DD6 are going to school now. But next year I am thinking of homeschooling them. I am trying to gather information at this point. One of the biggest worries about homeschooling at this point is writing. I keep reading that homeschooler kids are weak in their writing compared to kids who goto school. Is that true ?

 

What is a good curriculum for writing ? Right now, the boys are learning grammar, comprehension, spelling etc at school and I don't see a whole lot of writing going on at school either.

 

I am a bit scared that I might not be able to do a good job for their language arts. I feel teaching science and Math is easy. Right now in math, they are doing SM 4A/4B and I will just continue with 5a/5b next year .. and maybe introduce them with AOSP etc.

 

Science, I don't know, maybe get a few science kits ?

 

I don't know about Geography/social studies either. But the biggest worry for me is the writing and language arts.

 

What do you guys follow ? Are you kids good writers ?

 

thanks

[Paige]

I think schools do a good job of teaching kids to write a large amount of poor writing. The kids in school probably do write more than the average homeschooled child in early elementary. Quantity is not quality, however. A lot of homeschool curricula have students learn how to write before doing a lot of independent writing so the kids may look behind at first, but their output may be better quality.

[zilya]

What do you follow in the early elementary ?

[Paige]

What do you follow in the early elementary ?

 

 

I don't do a "writing" program in early elementary. We work on grammar, handwriting, spelling, punctuation, and vocabulary. With my older elementary, we like MCT (Grammar Island series), but I'm taking a break with my 5th grader. He's just doing assignments I give him this year. He reads, I give an assignment, then we spend a week or so editing it. He will do summaries, essays, reports, poems, etc.

[SarahW]

I've never heard of homeschoolers having bad writing skills. I was homeschooled, and I did fine on my College Comp classes and my graduate profs always complimented me on my prose.

 

[Disclaimer: When I post on internet forums I switch to the genre of half-brained internetese].

 

There are a ton of homeschool curriculums available to teach writing (far more now than when I was homeschooled). And you can also seek outside writing opportunities for external evaluation (4-H has writing programs and competitions, I believe, and there are other poetry competitions and essay competitions and such around).

 

But most homeschoolers, at least, most of the ones around here, disfavor the current in-vogue methods of writing with creative spelling, sloppy handwriting, and questionable grammar and punctuation. That's why you'll see so many saying that they don't encourage original composition from their kids until much later than their comparable public school peers. The idea is that kids should get the basics down first, and then write. But before the kid writes on their own there is a method where the kid speaks a complete sentence, then the parent writes it down, and then the kid reads it aloud. This lets them "write" without having to deal with trying to apply information they haven't learned yet.

[redsquirrel]

You might want to see if your local library has the book The Well Trained Mind. It has lots of suggested resources and might answer lots of your questions.

[kwg]

What do they use now in writing? CAn you just use the next level?

 

I use Writing With Skill with my 10 year old. Prior to that, we used WWE. He does not like to write but he has done a lot better this year with WWS.

[ForeverFamily]

You might want to see if your local library has the book The Well Trained Mind. It has lots of suggested resources and might answer lots of your questions.

 

:iagree:Reading The Well Trained Mind was extremely helpful in helping me understand the big picture as well as understand where my child should be skill wise at each grade/step. Like others have mentioned there are many, many options available for each subject. The Well Trained Mind helped me better understand my goals for each subject and I was then better able to sift through all of the options and find ones that have worked well for us.

[lillybell]

I didn't worry much about writing in the early years either. About mid fourth grade level we started using Winning with Writing but now that they are older and middle school level, I have been researching writing programs to up the antes on writing.

[Aspasia]

To be fair, Americans in general have very poor writing skills. I went to a fairly competitive university where one of my professors approached me to be his teaching assistant/writing advisor for his classes. I graded papers and had office hours where students came in for help with their writing. I. Was. Shocked. These people were admitted to the same university I was, and they were very accomplished in their chosen fields, but their writing was abysmal.

 

I have also been an online writing tutor since then and I am forever in amazement that people can graduate from high school, much less get into good colleges, with these writing "skills".

 

Anyway, writing is actually one of our primary reasons for homeschooling. We don't feel that it is taught well in public school. If you spend much time on elementary teachers' blogs (where I end up a lot via Pinterest), you will find them very unsettling. I'm just not interested in sending my kids to those people (creative and hard working as they are--I do love a lot of their ideas!) to learn how to use the English language.

 

As far as curriculum goes, my kids are obviously too little for that at this point. But I personally believe that curriculum is not the most important element of developing good writing skills. I think the key is good feedback. Students need feedback on their writing. They need someone to pick it apart and show them how to improve it. No curriculum can do that. The teacher/parent or some other human with strong writing skills is the only way.

[texasmama]

I have done adjunct teaching in the past, and I can tell you that the papers I received from my students (primarily public school grads) were of mixed quality. Some were abysmal. Most of the classes I taught were graduate level courses. So fear not about teaching writing. :)

[El...]

This link is to the recorded workshops from a recent Classical Education conference. It was for brick-and-mortar school teachers, but Susan Wise Bauer did the preconferences on teaching writing, and I loved listening to them! Even if you don't agree with everything she says, I think you'll find they help you think through how you want to teach writing and where to start. I've wound up loving her concept.

 

http://www.societyforclassicallearning.org/index.php/resources/media/20-2012-conference-recordings

 

The first preconference is on elementary, the second on middle, and the third on upper grades.

 

She also taught a Plenary session on "What is classical education?" which is great.

 

You can download more podcasts on the peace hill website too, which I've enjoyed.

[mrsbushman]

To be honest, my kids have much worse penmanship than their public schooled peers. I think this is largely because public school spends a lot of time doing busy work, which takes the form of writing. The good thing about homeschooling, though, is that deficient areas in your children's education are caught and corrected SO much quicker than in public school.

For our family we focus a lot of reading aloud together because that's what I think is important. If you think writing is important then you and your kids will focus on that and your kids will be exceptional writers. We use Writing Tales and like it, but my friend who is a serious LA gal uses Michael Clay Thompson. It is a comprehensive LA program, which might put your mind at ease.

Homeschooling is amazing. You're gonna love it!