For those of you who wish further statistical vindication of homeschool achievement, here’s the latest.
The Results
Overall the study showed significant advances in homeschool academic achievement as well as revealing that issues such as student gender, parents’ education level, and family income had little bearing on the results of homeschooled students.
National Average Percentile Scores
Subtest Homeschool Public School
Reading 89 50
Language 84 50
Math 84 50
Science 86 50
Social Studies 84 50
Corea 88 50
Compositeb 86 50
a. Core is a combination of Reading, Language, and Math.
b. Composite is a combination of all subtests that the student took on the test.
Of course, an education movement which consistently shows that children can be educated to a standard significantly above the average public school student at a fraction of the cost—the average spent by participants in the Progress Report was about $500 per child per year as opposed to the public school average of nearly $10,000 per child per year—will inevitably draw attention from the K-12 public education industry.
There’s a whole section on answering the critics as well.
God bless,
Laurel
p.s. Sorry about the poor alignment on the numbers; was copying from a table.
We use this song in our classes to teach older kids the sounds the letters make. If you teach it in conjunction with the ASL hand shapes then the child learns to recognize the hand shape and the sound that goes with it. You can then start putting the letters together to form words.
So it’s a Three-Fer. American Sign Language, the sounds the letters make, and both Capital and Lower Case letters. Demoed by a cute little girl who really knows her ASL.
Have some netting left over from a bag of clementines or oranges? Some yarn, an embroidery hoop, a chenille stem (what used to be called pipecleaners)?
You can use these to start your young’uns on the road to sewing success.
(College, Distance Learning, CLEP Tests, and related topics)Amanda Suryan is a homeschool graduate and former distance learning student. She earned her BA in English from Thomas Edison State College and currently lives with her family in California where she is pursuing her love of writing.
Do you use video in your homeschool curriculum? While you may have to view some carefully to filter out worldview issues, there are some good resources available here, created by teachers for the most part, or repurposed. Rated G, except for a video in the French Revolution series relating the “libels” published against Marie Antoinette which shows a rather extreme example of one.
The Khan Academy is a not-for-profit organization with the mission of providing a high quality education to anyone, anywhere.
We have 1000+ videos on YouTube covering everything from basic arithmetic and algebra to differential equations, physics, chemistry, biology and finance which have been recorded by Salman Khan.
The guy’s East Indian, and his vision is very different from ours, although I support peoples who wish to grow in learning and support their own kind, our focus is to support the education and growth of White Christian folks.
Still, there are a lot of good resources here that might be useful to homeschool families.
Free video courses from leading universities.
New Courses from Columbia, Yale, UCLA, Michigan, and MIT!
Can’t vouch for the political/sociological viewpoints of these course, so buyer beware. Still, some of these look valuable for those wishing to study on the college level without the pressure of textbooks, assignments, and exams.
Is math class too easy for you? Looking for a greater challenge?
You’ve come to the right place.
Art of Problem Solving online classes allow top students from around the world to hone their problem solving skills. Ideal for gifted math students in grade 6-12 who seek a greater challenge in mathematics, and those students preparing for MATHCOUNTS, the AMC, or other prominent mathematics contests.
Let’s hope there are many of student out there who need more than the basics!
P.S. Actually, her whole blog is an excellent resource for Charlotte Mason style home education. She also takes good photos of things she uses and how she uses them, which is a help for people who learn visually.
The Light and Matter series of introductory physics textbooks is designed for the type of one-year survey course taken by biology majors.
1. Newtonian Physics
2. Conservation Laws
3. Vibrations and Waves
4. Electricity and Magnetism
5. Optics
6. The Modern Revolution in Physics
* Simple Nature - engineering physics
* Conceptual Physics
* Calculus
* General Relativity
open-source software
* Planet Finder - an applet that shows the locations of the planets, stars, moon, and sun in the sky from any location and for any date and time
* Spotter - a program that lets students check their answers to math and science questions
* OpenGrade - software for teachers to keep track of grades
* When - an extremely simple personal calendar program, aimed at the Unix geek who wants something minimalistic
