American Home Schools

Home-school parents express a variety of reasons for educating their children at home, including individualization, family time, and strong academic, moral, and religious foundations.

INDIVIDUALIZATION
Home education is a wonderful opportunity to tailor your children's instructional program to their specific learning needs, abilities, and rates. Individualization allows children to work to their potential and increases the probability of educational success and personal satisfaction derived from the learning experience. Home education alleviates parents' concerns that their children are "falling between the cracks" or are not working to their full potential in their current schooling situation.

TIME TOGETHER
Some parents home educate because they desire additional time with their children. It has to do with sentiments of "children are only young once" and "they're gone before you know it." These parents want to spend as much time as possible with their children. Sometimes parents of older children just want to get "reacquainted" and/or strengthen family bonds as the challenging age of adolescence approaches. Families spend time together to learn about each other as well as to learn about facts and ideas. Parents find great satisfaction and pleasure in learning more about their children while helping their children learn more about themselves and the world around them.
Families in rural settings and families with special medical needs also enjoy the additional time home schooling affords them. Families in rural situations find that home schooling can minimize hours of commuting. Families of children who have special health problems find that some medical conditions can be more easily managed at home.

A STRONG ACADEMIC FOUNDATION
Many parents home school because they feel their children need to become more secure and confident in their academic abilities and skills. For some children this strong academic foundation may be more easily realized in the intimate setting of the home where a child receives individualized or small-group instruction. In order to do this, home-school parents may postpone their children's entry into formal schooling for a year, while other parents may choose to home school for all the primary or elementary grades. Still others will home school up to and through the high school level.

A STRONG MORAL OR RELIGIOUS FOUNDATION
Many parents desire strong religious training and values training for their children. Home schooling offers an extended time and place to achieve this objective. It also offers parents the opportunity to help children integrate religious values with curriculum content. For many parents, religious training and values training are key reasons for why they home school.

EDUCATIONAL PHILOSOPHY
Many parents home school to provide their children with an education aligned with their personal educational philosophy. It may be that their child is developing at a quicker or slower pace than his or her peers and that they wish to provide a more personalized instructional setting. Other parents may want to take a more interest-based approach to home education, using their children's questions to plan the lessons for their curriculum. Other home-school parents may disagree with the basic processes and goals of contemporary schooling which might involve curricular, testing or social concerns. Whatever the philosophical concern, parents who home school feel this decision enables them to provide an education aligned with their philosophy.

Home education provides a unique opportunity for young learners. The most commonly cited benefits include individualized education, interest-based education, and pacing.

INDIVIDUALIZED EDUCATION
The goal of individualized instruction can be realized through home education. Parents can decide their children's educational needs and then provide for those needs. The ongoing, self-adjusting feedback system that has been established from birth by loving, caring parents now becomes part of the child's educational environment. The parent, as teacher, can immediately tell if his or her child is grasping a particular idea or skill. If not, needed adjustments in materials and presentation can be made. In essence, home schooling is a tutorial situation tailored to meet a child's specific needs and learning styles.
Hannah Wevodau, age 13 writes about her own home-schooling experience -- One thing I really like about home schooling is that I can learn at my own speed. I used to be slow in reading, but instead of being in school where I would be in an easier class when my thinking skills were at normal level, my mom just home schooled me. She read me my history and science, and after a while I was at the normal level, even higher. In math, where I am really strong, I can go ahead up to a level that challenges me.
Linda Wevodau, Hannah's mother, writes about Hannah -- Our third child had speech difficulties and was an extremely late reader. With no peer comparisons academically, she developed in her own time and has self-confidence in her abilities now. She was able to keep up with her grade level and interests even though she could not read much of the material in these early years. I believe her blossoming and the role I've played with her may become the single most valuable contribution of home schooling to our family.

INTEREST-BASED EDUCATION
Your children can pursue their interests. Children as well as adults learn more quickly, with less effort, and with greater retention when they are interested in what they are doing (Moore, Raymond and Dorothy Moore The Successful Home-School Family Handbook Nelson, 1994, pg. 2). Children's minds are eager to be challenged. As children explore their interests, learning becomes meaningful and enjoyable. For example, ten-year-old Samantha is highly gifted and talented in the area of music. She studies at home and condenses most of her academic studies into the morning hours. Her afternoon hours are reserved for studying piano, violin, and voice. She also spends several hours a week working on her own compositions. With a traditional school schedule, it would be almost impossible for her to pursue her musical interests to this extent. Home education provides the time and opportunity to acknowledge and tap into her interests and hobbies. When interest and pleasure are present, learning is inevitable.

PACING
As a home educator, you need not feel the pressure of following the exact time line of a particular textbook. Your children can work at their own rates. For example, Jason, a fifth grader, understood three-digit multiplication and worked through this section of his math book twice as fast as the textbook suggested. When Jason encountered the fraction unit, he required an extra two weeks to understand the concepts introduced.
As a home school parent, you have the luxury of allocating as much or as little time to instruction in a particular area as you deem appropriate. Trust your instincts. You will quickly learn what does or doesn't work for your children.
When they are ready, move on. If they are not ready, and you believe the idea or skill is important, then present the information again in a different format. Or, you may decide the information is not appropriate just yet and choose to move on to something else. When a child is allowed to progress at his or her pace, learning becomes easier. The experience is more pleasurable and rewarding for both teacher and student.
Some children, because of their particular needs, may have difficulty in acquiring the basic skills. Compensation skills may need to be taught. If this is the case, then seek help. Ask advice from several sources such as trusted friends, relatives, or educators. Your concern may be short-term. It may be that your child is developing slowly right now but will catch up academically in no time. However, if lingering doubts haunt you, trust those instincts and seek professional help. It may be that your child has a special learning need that should be addressed immediately to save your family hours and even years of anguish in the future.

REAL-WORLD EDUCATION
Children educated at home have additional opportunities to observe parents in real-life situations. Children prepare for the real world by actually living and moving in that world as they go to the grocery store, post office, and toy store. Watching mature adults interact with people of all ages and occupations provides a strong model for helping a child gain maturity and social skills naturally.
Many parents also enjoy the additional time and flexibility home school provides to teach life skills such as cooking, sewing, gardening, general home repair, car repair, budgeting, and bookkeeping. Parents also find home education affords their children ample time on the computer to develop computer literacy -- an important skill that will serve their child well in the future.

The family unit has been the primary force for socialization until recent history. Basic skills and attitudes in a cross-generational setting are developed at home, primarily during the first six years of life.

"What about socialization?" is probably the question most asked of home educators. It is also the most frequently stated objection or concern of friends and relatives regarding home schooling. It is important to remember that socialization begins at home.

SOCIALIZATION BEGINS AT HOME
Children learn how to interact and the value of interacting from their parents. Parents model social skills when they interact with each other, family, friends, and neighbors. Home education can be an extended opportunity for this natural process of socialization to continue.

SOCIALIZATION OPPORTUNITIES
Socialization is an important part of every child's education. Home-schooled children have the opportunity to develop their communication skills within a broad social context. Home-educated children can socialize with peers after school and on weekends, and they can socialize with adults at home and in the community. They can sign up for dance classes, theater groups, music lessons, church choirs, and sports teams. They should also be encouraged to attend classes and field trips sponsored by support groups and public or private school independent study programs. The average home-schooled child attends more educational field trips during the year than most children who attend school. Therefore, they have the opportunity to observe, move about, and interact within a broad social context.
One of the benefits that many families appreciate about the home-school setting is that for a period of time in their child's life, the parent can be selective about the peer group in which their child interacts. Though no child or situation is perfect, many parents hope that by the time the child enters or returns to the traditional school setting, his or her values will be strong enough to withstand peer influence that may be contrary to family values and productive citizenship.

APPROPRIATE SOCIALIZATION
There is appropriate (positive) socialization and inappropriate (negative) socialization. Many parents decide to home educate because of the type of socialization they feel occurs at their particular local school. These parents want to postpone negative social lessons that might occur in the larger school setting which could involve conformity, ridicule, competition, popularity contests, teasing, bullying, and defiant behavior. Of course, these situations can and will occur in the neighborhood just as well, but then a parent is more readily available to council and guide.
Important positive social skills, such as kindness, patience, respect, understanding, and generosity, as well as their underlying moral values can be taught at school or home. Home educators feel these positive skills are more easily modeled and taught in the closely supervised context of the home.
Sending a child to school does not insure proper social development and neither does home schooling your child. Whether you choose to educate your child at home or at your local public or private school, it is imperative to be actively involved in influencing the social context in which your child lives. Home schooling provides parents a great opportunity to influence their child's social development.

DEPENDENCE VERSUS INDEPENDENCE
Sometimes the opinion is expressed that, in addition to developing social skills, sending a child to school fosters independence. That's true, but independence from what or whom? Parents sometimes find that children attending school are more independent -- of their parents and their parents' values while becoming more peer-dependent. Cornell University researchers found that children who spend more time with peers than with their parents become peer-dependent. The researchers concluded that the factors important to positive socialization such as self-worth, optimism, respect for parents, and trust in peers were diminished in peer-dependent children (Bronfenbrenner, Urie. Two Worlds of Childhood: U.S. and U.S.S.R. Simon and Schuster, 1970, pp. 97-101)
Home educators want children who can make their own decisions based on a foundation of family values and morals. They want peer-independent children. They feel this is more easily accomplished when children spend more time with their family and less time with peer groups.

REAL-WORLD EDUCATION
Related to the issue of socialization is the attitude that children should be in school to learn how to deal with the real world. In the eyes of home educators, placing their children in a school does not necessarily teach them about the real world. To home educators, the real world is the daily interaction which occurs within the family, neighborhood, and community. It should be noted, however, that group work and group interaction may be a large part of a child's future career. A discerning family will look for opportunities to accommodate group experiences.

RESEARCH ON SOCIALIZATION
Finally, the concern over whether home education has a negative impact on a child's social development is based more on attitude and bias than on experience. Studies indicate that home-educated children score higher on measures of self-esteem (Ray Brian D. Home School Researcher, Vol. 7, No. 1, March 1991).
John Taylor Gatto, the outspoken 1991 New York State Teacher of the Year, said that home-educated children can be socially five to ten years ahead of their classroom counterparts (Gatto, John Taylor, Dumbing Us Down: The Hidden Curriculum of Compulsory Schooling. New Society Publisher, 1992). Our experience supervising home-school families has been that most home-school children are polite, friendly, and at ease with people of all ages. Their daily experiences include a wider variety of people so they are less age-restricted. They are equally comfortable with younger children, peers, and adults.
So what about socialization? Does educating children at home hinder or harm their social development? Experience and research indicate that for most home-schooled children, the home-school experience is a catalyst for rapid and beneficial social growth. A key to remember is that each child is an individual with individual needs. Home schooling is not for everyone. Some children thrive in the traditional school setting while others flounder. Evaluate your situation and do what you feel is the best for your child.

Many parents who wish to home school their children, question whether or not they are qualified to take on such an enormous task. It is impossible to remember that, as a parent, you are already a teacher.

PARENTS ARE TEACHERS
You are your child's first teacher. You have taught your child since birth, from the simple task of recognizing common objects to the complexities of using spoken language. You have played a part, whether large or small, in your child's acquisition and mastery of thousands of skills and ideas. You have helped your child understand the world. Even if he or she enters a formal school setting, your role as teacher is not over. His or her moral, social, and intellectual development is an ongoing process that you will address until, and possibly into, adulthood. Parents spend hours weekly helping their children understand and complete homework assignments as well as modeling interpersonal skills. Being a parent is synonymous with being a teacher.

EVERYONE STARTS SOMEWHERE
All teachers start somewhere. Those who select education as a profession have the foundation of years of lectures, readings, and supervised training yet still have to go through the adventure of surviving the first year of teaching. Nothing prepares one for teaching like teaching itself. The fear and anxiety that you might experience as you set about educating your own children is felt by most novice teachers as is the anticipation and excitement.
As a home educator, your intimate understanding and love for your child can help balance and enhance your lack of formal training. You may not be trained for or inclined to teach a class of second graders, but you can sit with you own child and share your knowledge and skills. Individual and small-group instruction is a powerful educational setting. As one Arkansas home-school mom, Louise Jones, said, I have three children and all three have different personalities, and they are all motivated differently. A classroom teacher cannot take into consideration the varying personalities of 30 students as often as the home-schooling parent can in a tutorial setting.
Even lack of experience can be turned into an advantage. Sharing your lack of knowledge with your child allows you and your child to learn together. When teacher and student set out on a joint inquiry, more than just the subject is taught. The student learns that it is acceptable to admit ignorance. The student learns how to learn -- a critical life skill which will benefit him or her throughout life. And inspired by your enthusiasm, the student experiences the pleasures of learning.
Possessing a teaching credential is not a prerequisite to successful home education, and a parent's level of education is a minimal predictor of his or her success as a home educator (Home School Court Report The Home School Legal Defense Association, December 1990, pp. 2-7). Obviously, it is easy to understand that a parent who is only semi-literate would have a difficult time teaching a child to master reading. On the other hand, it is not necessary to be a quantum physicist to succeed at home education.
Our experience in a supervisory role with home educators has shown that parental commitment and love of learning are more important than years of schooling. We have seen parents with advanced degrees burn out after less than a year while parents with only a high school education successfully home school for years. Successful home education is the result of many complex and interrelated issues, talents, and factors. A parent's attitude toward education and level of commitment to the home-schooling process is as important as his or her amount of education.

CONTINUED EDUCATION HELPS
Parents may have an intimate understanding of their children; however, that understanding may not always be enough to insure a successful home-school experience. The value of understanding ongoing research in child development, educational philosophy, and teaching methodology cannot be overstated. The more you learn about educating your child, the more your child will benefit from home education. The references in the bibliography are a good place to start. Taking classes for credit or noncredit at your local college or university can also be a big help. Home-school workshops and conventions are offered in most areas and these can be informative, helpful, and encouraging.

FAMILY AND FRIENDS CAN HELP
You do not have to teach your child everything. Outside resources are usually an option. It is common for a home-school family to have a relative in the extended family who is willing to join in the adventure. Grandparents, friends, and even neighbors may want to share an area of expertise or interest with your child.

SUPPORT GROUPS HELP
Many parents who educate at home find other parents doing the same and find formal support groups in which parents teach their "specialties." One dad may teach a small group of children history while a mom teaches math. Addresses and telephone numbers for national and international support groups are listed on page 185.
If you don't join an organized support group, you may find it helpful to informally meet with two or three parents, perhaps over the phone. These informal meetings can offer the encouragement and support which is vital to the home-school educator. You can also talk to teachers, friends, and relatives who have knowledge about education in general or home schooling specifically. Learn all you can from their experiences, and become the best home educator you can be.

OUTSIDE RESOURCES HELP
There are many outside resources in the community, including private tutors, local parks and recreation classes, and libraries which often have regional computer link-ups. Some families maintain a working relationship with their child's former or future public or private school, and the child is allowed to attend select classes, events or field trips. Some parents sign up their children in correspondence programs or independent study programs provided by a district, city, county, state, or province. As Kimberlee Graves of Cypress, California, stated in her evaluation of this book, Be sure to tell parents that some school districts offer home schooling as an alternative, complete with teacher support and curriculum materials. It would be a shame if parents didn't explore this option simply because they were unaware of its existence.

Studies indicate that home-educated children, as a group, perform academically at least as well as or better than their classroom counterparts.

80TH PERCENTILE
In 1990, a major national report was released by the National Home Education Research Institute which studied the test results for close to 1500 home-educated children (Home School Court Report. The Home School Legal Defense Association, December 1990). The average scores for these children were at or above the 80th percentile in all categories. The categories included reading, listening, language, math, science, and social studies. The major standardized tests used included the California Achievement Test, the Iowa Test of Basic Skills, and the Stanford Achievement Test (SAT). An 80th percentile score means that the students scored better than or equal to 80 percent of the students used to norm that particular level of the test. This study supports the claim that home-educated children, as a group, perform academically at least as well or better than counterparts in traditional classrooms.
Other sources reporting the success of home schooling include:
Time: "While the national average (on standardized tests) is in the 50th percentile, the average home schooled students register between the 65th and 80th percentiles." (Gibe, Nancy. "Home Sweet School." Time, October 31, 1994, p 63.)
Teachers College Record: Educational research conducted by the Hewitt Research Foundation found that the performance scores in the 75th to 95th percentile are common for home-schooled children. The study included several thousand home-schooled children across the United States. Many of the parents spent no more than an hour or two a day teaching their children. (Moore, Raymond. "Research and Common Sense: Therapies for Our Home and Schools." Teachers College Record, Columbia University, Vol. 84, No. 2, 1982, p. 372.)
Phi Delta Kappa: This study found that home-schooled children received higher scores on standardized achievement tests than did their peers in Los Angeles public schools. (Weaver, Roy et. al. "Home Tutorials vs. Public Schools in Los Angeles." Phi Delta Kappa, December 1980, pp. 254-255.)
Home Education Magazine: In South Dakota, home-schooled fourth graders received the highest SAT scores in the state. The tests are required annually. Seventy-four percent of the home-schooled fourth graders tested have never attended public or private school. (Home Education Magazine, Vol. 11, No. 2, March-April 1994, p 49.)

OUR EXPERIENCE
Both authors have worked for a major public school independent study program designed to assist home-educating families. This program is run by the Orange County Department of Education in Southern California. It is the largest public independent study program in the state of California. Current enrollment is over 870 students. Family situations and socioeconomic levels are diverse.
Once a year the program offers optional standardized testing (Comprehensive Test of Basic Skills - CTBS) to its families. The majority of the children are tested. Testing occurs at the site offices sponsored by the County Department of Education. The testing environment is formal, and the tests are administered and proctored by credentialed teachers. All security measures are followed to insure valid test results. The home-school students' average test scores are higher than the national norm year after year. Scores indicate that home-educated children are learning essential concepts as defined by standardized testing.

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