bbcovert@juno.com

One of the benefits of homeschooling is the opportunity for your children to learn at their own pace. However, it’s easy to forget that plan when faced with a complete curricula. Many parents feel that in order to give their children a complete education, each lesson in each subject needs to be covered -- especially if any portion of the educational materials was rather pricey. Furthermore, one complete lesson per subject must be completed each day. With such an inflexible plan, your children will be unable to take it fast, or take it slow.

Do you have a hare in your family -- that is, a student who can race through his daily work? Is it too easy? Is it boring? Is your hare in tears at all the pointless “busy” work? If you need someone to give you permission to skip lessons, let me be that person. When your student demonstrates mastery of any skill, don’t feel pressured to continue working on that skill. So what if there are four more pages of that type of math problem? Big deal if there are four or five chapters in language arts that your student will miss. There’s no reason to cover information that has already been learned and mastered. When it comes to review material, it’s okay to choose a few questions in order to check your student’s memory. It’s not necessary to answer 50 obviously easy questions when 10 or 15 would do. Also, if your student would like to work ahead in one or more chapters, let him. There’s no need to douse enthusiasm for education! Let your children take it fast if that is how God has wired them.

Perhaps you have a tortoise in your family -- a student who needs to spend more time on each lesson. Is it too hard? Is new material being presented at too fast a pace? Is your tortoise in tears over the many hours it takes to complete his daily assignments? If you need permission to slow down and take more than one day to complete an assignment, let me give it to you. I used to push my two math tortoises through a lesson a day; I was desperate to “stay on schedule.” I remember sitting at the dining table for three hours one afternoon trying to complete just one lesson. I was in tears, and the kids weren’t far behind. They weren’t grasping the concept, and nothing I did could change that. Then I gave up my dream of completing one lesson each day. We slowed down. We never spent more than an hour a day on math. If the kids didn’t grasp a concept after a number of days, I switched to a new chapter where I felt they would excel. The unlearned concept was saved for another time. You can really do that, did you know? The teacher has the right to set the agenda for each subject! You can let your children take it slow if that is how God has made them.

Home education can be a pleasant experience when we don’t pressure our children to do more or less than they are capable of. Isn’t that one of the purposes of homeschooling? May God bless your efforts with your little tortoises, hares, and in-betweens.

Happy homeschooling!

Copyright Brenda B. Covert