Advice needed on schooling twins....

[ABQmom]

A friend of mine is homeschooling this year for the first time. She has twin first grade boys. She sees that one will potentially pull ahead of the other. She asked me how she should handle that, but not having twins myself, I don't know what advice to give.

 

So, I'm asking the hive. How would you handle two kids in the same grade when one pulls ahead of the other?

[eight_gregorys]

I have twin boys that are in kindergarten. They are both reading, but one is doing better than the other. What subject is she concerned with? I keep my boys together in math. I personally think it would be too crazy having them on different math levels. For reading, I'm using Phonics Pathways and I let progress at their own levels. PP makes this very easy to do. I also supplement with Explode the Code. I keep them together on those as well. We just started from the beginning and progress through the books at the same rate. Depending on where her boys are at, I would highly recommend PP.

 

I hope I answered your question, I wasn't sure which subjects you were referring to specifically. If you were referring to a different subject, please let me know. I"d be happy to share my opinion. :001_smile:

 

Andrea

[Reya]

A friend of mine is homeschooling this year for the first time. She has twin first grade boys. She sees that one will potentially pull ahead of the other. She asked me how she should handle that, but not having twins myself, I don't know what advice to give.

 

So, I'm asking the hive. How would you handle two kids in the same grade when one pulls ahead of the other?

 

I'm teaching two kids who are about 9 mo apart in ages, but the ability gap between them is becoming almost exponential at this point. I keep them together for history, Bible, and science, but I've had to give up on all other subjects. I even have different standards for them in handwriting. If one is bothered by the other being ahead, I pretty much say "tough toenails." :-) If you care that much, then you'll have to put in as much effort as it takes to stay even or get ahead yourself. Different people have different strengths, personalities, and interests, and that'll affect their rate of progress. Other people will be better than you in some things and worse in others. It's life. Make what you can out of it.

 

Of course, I make a point to super-praise the slower kid whenever he does something well. If the faster one did a really sloppy job on something and the slower one did better, even if the slower one isn't better than the faster one on an absolute scale, I make sure the slower one gets praised and the faster one gets an "I'm disappointed in the lack of attention you put into this."

 

Part of their ability gap is simply what they were born with. Part is also how they were raised. I've worked with mine since he was born to make him approach challenges as opportunities and to encourage him to work through adversity because that's the only way to have meaningful accomplishments. The other child, whenever anything is hard, asks his parents to do it for him. And they do. So he digs in his heels as soon as anything doesn't come instantaneously. He was the worst swimmer in his class and is the worst dancer in dance class by a LOT, not because he can't but because he won't try. Even when the kids play video games, he mostly gives the controller to my son and has him play for him. The second something's a bit tricky, he gets someone else to do it for him. School work is, of course, the same. I've tried to get him through challenges, but there's a limit to what I can do because he doesn't live with me and I'm not raising him. His personality is such that he's not bored by easy things that I would have found unbearably tedious as a child, either. He continues to be pleased by accomplishments, and the less effort they take, the better. So he'll sit down to a big pile of Kindergarten phonics skills workbooks and happily go through them all even though he's reading on a solid 1st grade level. He progress, then, is understandably stunted compared to what it could be.

 

So I guess that a take-home lesson for every parent! I really don't think you can overestimate the value of teaching a kid to work hard, risk failure, and persevere.

[Twinmom]

I'm homeschooling twin boys who are in kindergarten, as well as a gifted 2nd grader who has surpassed his 3rd grade sis by a mile academically. It's a tough challenge when one passes the other. Happens a lot around here, for good or for bad.

 

For my twins, I tend to do them together and suggest that they help one another when there is a gap. This works for my two, but may not work for others. If one is behind, sometimes some extra time with that one is necessary, along with all those explanations about people gaining skills at their own pace. My best ideas, however, have come with the older two since they have the larger gap. For our biggest gap area, we are using separate curriculum. I've explained to them about different learning styles and rates of growth, and this has also helped. We use Singapore and MUS, neither of which have traditional "grade levels" in their titles...and Singapore works a year ahead of traditional US classwork, so it doesn't look like DS is as far ahead as he actually is. This allows DS to accelerate past DD without DD catching on completely. It's also great that Singapore "splits" its grade levels into two books. Somehow, this also helps to mask how fast DS is going.

 

We do many other subjects together, like all the language arts, history, science, art, etc. The twins join us for history, science and art. My hints here may be more applicable to kids in different grade levels, but I'll share anyway. The big kids help the little kids, sometimes even DD helps more advanced DS when she has an area she's better in (yes, there are some!) DD was initially upset about this, but my explanation worked for her. I told her that it is necessary for me as a busy home schooling momma to group them together for these subjects so we can get everything done, regardless of the fact that they are in different grades. I've also explained that this works because there isn't a set of exact standards for each grade that we MUST cover in home school...rather, it's more like a set of things that need to be finished in grammar school, etc., so we can do things together for my convenience. DD likes this. Our first year, we quickly covered DS's grade level, calling it a "review" for DD (though she actually really needed to repeat it again) then moved on to DD's grade for the rest of the year. We are staying in DD's grade level at least for now. No one seems upset about this at all.

 

Hope some of this helps. There are inevitable comparisons between the twins no matter what...they'll do it themselves. However, it's possible to get them helping each other, to explain how God made even twins different. The kids get this, and even like it. It will it work out in the end!

[ABQmom]

If one is bothered by the other being ahead, I pretty much say "tough toenails." :-) If you care that much, then you'll have to put in as much effort as it takes to stay even or get ahead yourself. Different people have different strengths, personalities, and interests, and that'll affect their rate of progress. Other people will be better than you in some things and worse in others. It's life. Make what you can out of it.

 

There are inevitable comparisons between the twins no matter what...they'll do it themselves. However, it's possible to get them helping each other, to explain how God made even twins different. The kids get this, and even like it. It will it work out in the end! (by Twinmom)

 

Yes, yes, you guys have all said exactly what I couldn't quite wrap my thoughts around this morning! I think she just needs some help getting over the whole grade level thing from public school and move on to what individual needs are. This will probably be more difficult for twins, but you all have given me some good ideas to share with my friend. Thank you!

[hsmamainva]

My advice would be to find something they can use together for science and history -- something that's designed for use with multiple ability levels / ages, so that it can be 'customized' for the needs of each one.

 

And then let them use their own books for math and English, so they can each go at their own pace. And if they have different learning styles, that can be accommodated also (maybe one learns best with phonics and another one learns best with sight reading....or maybe one needs manipulatives for math and another one enjoys colorful workbooks, etc.)

 

My boys aren't twins! In fact, they're 5 years apart in age...but my 14 year old has autism and my 8 year old is very advanced for his age .. so I try to find a science and history program that's geared toward a 5th to 8th grade age level and then it works for both of them. They love it and it saves me time (since I also have a 1st grader to teach). They each have their own math and English books, geared toward their learning styles and ability level.

 

Hope this helps!

[Jenmomof3]

I have b/g twins, but I would guess the issues are the same. Both are above grade level, but my ds would probably be considered gifted. We do as many subjects as we can together like history, grammar, science, art, music, etc. But, there are a few that I just have to teach separately - namely math and spelling at this point. There tends to be a lot of competition, as I would guess most twins experience. We've had numerous talks about everyone progressing at their own level and how one may excel in one subject and the other in a different subject. I think it's all sinking in, but you still hear the occasional - "You can't get that? That's so easy". And, we start the talk again.

 

Since they're the only two in "class", it's also easy for them to compare themselves to each other, which often is hard on the one who is struggling. We try to stress the importance of individual achievement. We do a lot of reviewing how much we've improved by looking back at old work. If that doesn't seem to be working, I sometimes need to broaden the picture for them. I explain what other kids at their grade level are expected to know at this point. Knowing that they are just where they need to be or even more advanced than their counterparts seems to give them the boost of self confidence they need.

 

One other thing I've found is that even though one may seem way ahead of the other, the other may catch up very quickly once it clicks. My ds started to read at 2 1/2, when my dd was far from ready. However, when she started to read around age 5, she advanced 2-3 years in about 1 year. So, I try very hard not to underestimate or overestimate either one of them. It's all about working at their individual level. And, isn't that what we love about homeschooling?

 

Best wishes to your friend. If she has more specific questions or problems let us know.

 

HTH,

[Matryoshka]

That was my worst nightmare, that one of my twins would pull way ahead!

 

Math would be the hardest to finesse. I'd say one of my twins is a little "better" at math, but not exponentially so. I've kept them both together for math, right down to the same page so I can teach the lesson to them together. If there had been a huge gap, I might've done it differently.

 

One of them did start to read fluently almost a year before the other. I did the intial phonic-type lessons together, but then one just took off. I mostly just let the reader read, and did extra lessons with the other, and would also buddy read with her. I was starting to despair that she'd ever take off, when she did. For a while she still couldn't get through books quite as quickly as her sister, but now (5th grade) I'd say she's pretty much caught up.

 

For all other subjects, whether they're exactly together doesn't matter so much. Independent workbooks, I'd let them go at their own speed. For history, I even include my younger dd, I just give her readers at her level. The same thing could be done with science.

[Mary in NJ]

I have twin 10 yo boys. They are on the same level for everything except reading. Two different levels.

 

Any day now, one twin may very well be ahead in Math. I could see his eyes glaze over when we reviewed long division AGAIN. His brother just doesn't seem to remember the steps. (we took 3 months off)

 

This could cause some competition problems if the oldest twin gets to move ahead in Math.