{Day 5} How Can Parents Be Sure The Children Are Learning?
{For an overview of all 31 Days of Homeschooling click HERE.}
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Homeschool moms and dads spend countless hours thinking about learning success. Many a homeschool parent has worried about whether learning goals were being met and the children were progressing at a reasonable pace.
Monitoring learning isn’t just important to parents, but to many states and districts, too. In many households, adequate learning is the key to whether homeschooling may continue the following year.
Fortunately, as serious as this all sounds, there are many different ways that homeschool learning can be measured. No matter the child, the methods or the materials used, there is always at least one way for parents to tell if a child is learning and homeschooling has been a success that year.
The most common way to measure student learning at home is through grading, assessments and course completion. That is, as long as students complete the entire curriculum, achieve passing grades, and receive high enough scores on assessments, it can be said that learning has occurred. The degree of learning can also be measured this way, too — by looking at how high the grades are, and how they compare to previous years. This is what schools do, and homeschoolers can do it, too.
Another common way to measure homeschool learning is through standardized testing. Tests with names like CAT, IOWA and SAT can be used for homeschoolers, too. In fact, some states even require them. These tests produce scores for homeschooled students just like the scores earned by their same-age, same-grade peers. Measuring certain kinds of knowledge and test-taking skills is virtually indisputable this way. For many parents, this is considered a measure of homeschool learning, as well.
But every homeschool family is a little bit different, and not all families measure learning the same way. Other measures of learning can be used, too.
A great way to assess learning is through observation. By watching and listening to a child, parents can often determine whether learning has occurred. Signs of learning include discussing topics covered in school, using skills acquired in lessons and books, and moving easily onto harder material that wouldn’t be possible had earlier learning not happened. It is especially easy to measure learning practical arts and hands-on skills this way. These skills are so obvious, they usually cannot be missed. For instance, if a child is now able to bake muffins, sketch a bird, crochet a blanket or type rapidly on a keyboard, whereas they were struggling to do these things before, it is easy to see that learning has taken place.
Academic material can be measured through observation, too. When a child begins discussing at the dinner table the onset of World War II, debugging a difficult piece of code, or building molecules, learning is also being observed. Although it may be hard to decide students have remembered everything they learned, hearing students apply the concepts and discussing them in different contexts is usually enough to put any concerns over course mastery to rest. In my opinion, and that of countless other education professionals, this is true learning at work. (Also remember, studies show that students in public schools don’t remember much of what they “learn”, either.)
There are still other measure of homeschool success. Some parents measure success by merely counting hours — enough hours completed equates to enough learning per day. Others listen to the personal testimonies of teachers, tutors and other parents who work with their child. Readiness for the next course, book, or lesson in a series indicates learning. So does happiness and an eagerness to learn and forge ahead with new material. Still other ideas can be found HERE.
Click my FREEBIES tab to find all kind of forms and sheets you can use to record the kinds of learning you observe in your children. Take advantage of these freebies, plus those you find elsewhere, to track the amount of learning occurring in your home.
If you’re stuck on any of this so far, feel free to reach out.
Dr. Marie-Claire Moreau is a college professor who traded in her tenure to become a homeschool mom 20+ years ago. A homeschooling pioneer and the founder of many groups and organizations, she works to advance home education, and is an outspoken supporter of education reform coast to coast. Her book, Suddenly Homeschooling: A Quick Start Guide to Legally Homeschool in Two Weeks, is industry-acclaimed as it illustrates how homeschooling can rescue children and families from the public school system, and how anyone can begin homeschooling within a limited time-frame, with no teaching background whatsoever. A liaison for regional school-to-home organizations, a homeschool leader, and a women’s life coach, Marie-Claire mentors in a variety of areas that impact health, education and lifestyle. A conference speaker, she has appeared at FPEA, H.E.R.I., Home Education Council of America, The Luminous Mind, Vintage Homeschool Moms, iHomeschool Network, and many other events. Her articles have appeared in and on Holistic Parenting, CONNECT, Homefires, Homemaking Cottage, Kiwi, Circle of Moms, and hundreds of sites and blogs nationwide. Marie-Claire can be reached at contactmarieclaire@gmail.com.
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