Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Learning Environments Homeschooling and pace to go at?

Hi,
I wanted to ask some of you who homeschool. Of course, you want your child to get to stay a child and have fun too before growing up too fast ...

I wanted to ask some of you, how fast do you go? If your child is capable and enjoys the work, do you let them move ahead in a few subjects? All subjects? Are you expecting your child to be working on High School material early? And College material early?

The reason I ask is we're thinking of homeschooling. We have a child that is across the board gifted and very capable. We actually want child to be challenged as we see that child hasn't been this past year and has made child have a sense that things are most often easy. As both Carolyn K's articles and our psych-ed tester told us, the most important thing (1 of) would be to make sure child knows how to work/study hard at something, persevere, etc etc.

So, if we were to go at a good pace, we're thinking that there is no way we can keep child at elementary school. We may have to continue with homeschool and distance learning for high school material as child wouldn't actually be of high school age yet, etc etc.

I also think the model of distance learning via computers/home schooling is going to take off. It allows children/families that can to move forward. Wouldn't it be nice for your 16 year old to finish a certain amount of schooling and run a business and do this/that for a few years? I'm thinking it would be great to fail at a few businesses, work, try this and that between 16-20 before heading into college material -- or perhaps do it at the same time.

What do you guys think? Do you try to slow down the pace a lot so your child stays approx. the same grade as his/her age peers? If you have an older child, are they working on High School material while in elementary?

Hi Jesse

I contemplated waiting to respond to this, letting others respond first because homeschooling has been very challenging for us, so pls. take my response with a grain of salt.

My DD6 and DS2 set the pace. I would love to set the pace. I would love it if they would pull out their pencils and sit down with workbooks. Early in the year my DD declared that 'Workbooks are meaningless to me'. My DD has not been tested but is above grade level in most areas, in certain areas she is significantly more advanced. She is as strong willed as she is bright. She is tough. I have started from scratch 3 times in one school year. While I always aim to engage her, I find that it is extremely easy to slip into coercion. This was SK!!!! It has taken a full year for me to realize what works for her and what doesn't. When DD was in school (preschool and JK) she conformed and did what was 'expected' of her, unfortunately not much was expected of her, hence our decision to homeschool. Somehow amidst the chaos of year 1 homeschooling, she has jumped multiple grade levels in certain areas, but I don't think that I had all that much to do with it! The best advice that I can give is to be really flexible and adaptable, be willing to do things 'on the fly'. This is the beauty of homeschooling. It is equally important to be willing to let go of what doesn't work (even if you spent hours in prep and/or tons of money). This is the hard part of homeschooling. We don't work in any particular grade level, DD is technically entering grade one, but she is all over the map. I really try to emphasize perseverance, effort, mastery, etc. For us it has been a wild ride, very challenging for our entire family, but in the end an amazing experience. Just my 2 cents....

Annaliisa

Hi Jesse,

I agree with Annalisa that you'll find it's best to follow the natural pace that your child sets. That being said, my husband and I are not personally on board (at this early stage) with the idea of having our boys graduate several years ahead. Not only do we feel that it's important to keep our family home together until they get close to the age of adulthood, but we also think there are many social aspects to those years that are developmentally more important than graduating extremely early and starting their adulthood/careers that much sooner. ((Lots of very-early graduates do extremely well, though, so this is no judgment on other familiies' decisions!!))

It's a struggle, though, because DS1 just turned 6 and is already 2 1/2 - 5+ years ahead, depending on the subject. He is one of those ultra-fast learners, which means that we risk him jumping approximately 2 years further ahead every year (esp. with homeschooling, where you can fit much more into the school day). People keep asking us, "What are you going to do???", and frankly, we have no idea.

What we've decided to do for now is fill his education by studying "out" instead of merely "up." In other words, instead of merely focusing on standards, we're also heavily introducing history, language (latin/spanish this year), geography, more LA focus in the different subcategories, etc. For example, we're doing Story of the World, but take at least a week for each chapter (which he can read in 10 minutes) by reading at least 5-10 of the recommended reading books on each outside subject. We're doing two different curriculums for many subjects (REAL and Apologia for science; EPGY and Rightstart for math) that parallel each other but come from different angles. We're doing an immersion study in each subject, so we thoroughly study a topic in detail with everything we can find on it before moving on to the next chapter.

By homeschooling, we also have more time to let the students run with something. For example, right now my DS1 is writing a "novel" and spends several hours a day on it. When he's like that, I just scratch some of the other things off our list and move them to the following day.

Finally, we're also filling 1 full and 2-half days of our school week with co-op activities. There, we're studying science, fine arts, drama, robotics, geography, PE standards, etc. This leaves us less than 3 full days to do our "regular" work, so I suspect this should slow us down a tad!

Both my kids work ahead of grade level. WAY ahead of grade level in some subjects. It really isn't possible to keep my son at grade level, and even my younger in some areas (still figuring out my youngest). I go deep and wide and I only do "school" for a couple hours a day. They are free to explore and read beyond that on their own. Or they can climb trees and make snowmen. It's their choice after their work is over. So the work they are required and output is age appropriate. The input is at a challenge level for them. I do not try to race through material. If I need it deeper, we get more books, we invent more projects, we go on more field trips. I sign the kids up for extra classes - drama, circus arts, swimming, etc. We take the summer off to do free reading and explore outside.

Music lessons and structuring our days around practice have been great for us too. It's a great place to learn to work with a mentor, move at your own pace, and it's always challenging in one way or another.

One day we'll hit college level material with my oldest. We're hitting high school level stuff with him now at 9 without stretching ourselves. When we get there (dragging my feet), we'll come up with our next plan. We have many options locally to take college level classes.

So, I guess I'm open to all options for the future. But right now, we're all enjoying what we're doing! I'm not planning on sending a child to college to live early at this point.

And I agree with Gratefulmom . If you were to ask my DD what grade she is in, she'll tell you grade 1. We are using age appropriate titles for now, however, what we do in grade 1 is quite different from the local public school. I wholeheartedly agree with 'keeping the whole family together until they get close to the age of adulthood'. This is very important to us as well.

Annaliisa

The biggest lessons I've learned about child development is that it is a process over which we have very little control.

I absolutely understand why it is appealing to believe you can keep the child at grade level. I also appreciate the value in trying to "go wide and not deep." I understand why parents are wary of anything that seems to take away from having a full and long childhood. I understand these sentiments because I voiced them all regularly when we decided to start homeschooling our five year old kindergartner who is now a teenager.

Turns out that this process didn't evolve according to my agenda. The pace of development was startling. Even with very loose unstructured academics with very little parental direction, academics FLEW faster than I ever could have imagined (even faster than we were advised they would). This happened even with going very wide with diverse and time consuming interests like music. Kids are all different of course, but our efforts at trying stuff like using grade level materials like Story of the World resulted only in frustration for all involved.

For me homeschooling is 100% about having a happy child. For my gifted kid being able to have challenge and let his brain go at the pace it wants to go is at the very core of who he is and it is fundamental to happiness. Further, looking back I now see he was wise to allow himself to spend some time working at the outer edge of his ability because in that process he learned essential lessons about handling frustration and perfectionism which is a positive thing to have happen before adulthood.

So, my two cents, sure try to go wide, try to encourage a variety of interests, don't push or fuss about asynchronous development because it is normal. But, keep a close eye on happiness and allow for the possibility that the pace at which the child is happiest is not the one you would choose.

Hi Jesse,

I'm not homeschooling but do consider it as an option. Just wanted to offer you another view. I, personally believe you go at your child's pace. This is the complaint about public school, is it not? The reason most (not all) parents of a HG+ child homeschools is because the school could not or would not fulfill the need of their child. But does this mean you plow through the curriculum and have them through high school by age 10? Depends on the child and the family unit as a whole. If you choose not to go this route but still want your child to be challenged there is another option: enrichment. You don't have to stick to the school's idea of curriculum. If your child is interested in computers you could provide a more in depth opportunity for them. If you live near a university you might have some wonderful opportunities for him/her to be mentored by a student (grad or even undergrad upper class) and/or a professor. Other areas of enrichment: art, business planning, science, etc. Take art for an example. There are wonderful community coops with artists who would love to mentor a child and the businesses in the area would open up great opportunities. There are so many ideas when we think outside of the box.

I agree and very much plan on my kids having access to college level coursework when they need it. We're lucky enough to have many local options for that.

When my son left K and we started homeschooling, I had lots of ideas and lots of advice in my pocket. Much of it concerned not letting him tear through subjects at the speed of light....

One year later, my son is about to enter a math and science magnet school as a 7th grader. Going wide didn't work, going deep didn't work, nothing worked! He seems to have one speed when it comes to learning, fast!

While it sounds good in theory to have your child do all sorts of activities to slow the pace, it will depend entirely on your child. Finishing high school early doesn't mean they have to go off somewhere, there are always options. My DS is studying the stock market now and working at odd jobs to earn enough money to start a portfolio. So maybe the "tween" years will be spent on making money, who knows?

The only problems I have had with my DS9 were when I tried to slow him down, to fill gaps instead of letting him work at his own pace.

I'm a big fan of deep and wide. I use that every chance I get. Foreign language, extensive music education, extensive creative writing, and ad savvyness are all on our school schedule for this coming year, and they are not things that would be so thoroughly tackled in our local public school. This is my big trick for trying to slow down.

But he's way ahead in most subjects. There's no getting around it with him. He will be taking college-level classes by the time he hits a traditional high school age. <shrug> That's how it goes. With online options and community colleges, he won't be going away to college. He'll just be doing harder work. We can handle that.

Frankly, there isn't any other option.

But, yeah, I slow him down every chance I get if I can do so without sacrificing his happiness. But especially in science, that's hard to do. He's starting high school science and algebra this year, and he's a young 9. It still freaks me out, honestly.

Oh, I'll add that avoiding pre-packaged curricula seems to help us a lot with the deep and wide. Most of the pre-made stuff I've seen--and naturally, I haven't seen it all--hits things rather perfunctorily. I've had better luck with putting my own "courses" together. FWIW.