This is the 7th post in my series about books related to teaching, learning and homeschooling.
(See my earlier post for a description of the series.)
"There are many roads to an educational Rome," writes Rebecca Rupp in her book, Home Learning Year By Year: How to Design a Homeschool Curriculum from Preschool Through High School. While she isn't the first to advocate moving away from a one-size-fits-all approach to education, she is the only experienced homeschooler I know who has written a comprehensive book aimed at helping those who want to design their own course of study.
I remember when I first came across her book. I was feeling anxious, eager to try something new but not entirely sure how to go about it. I hadn't been homeschooling for long, maybe a few months, but I had already reached a point where I knew the curriculum I'd borrowed from the school wasn't going to work for us. The pre-planned activities were contrived and unrelated to my daughter's interests, and she quickly became bored with the worksheets and textbooks. Now what? I wondered. My trouble was that I had no experience with designing my own curriculum. I'd been assuming I'd be able to depend on McGraw-Hill, Pearson and Houghton-Mifflin to lead the way.
Home Learning Year by Year was just what I needed at the time. It offered me guidance without being prescriptive. Instead of mandating "What Your First Grader Needs to Know," it outlined a typical program of study while allowing for individual differences. Her goal was to help parents become familiar "with the general course of the standardized educational curriculum," but only so that they could use it "as a reference point and a guideline rather than a set of predetermined assignments."
And that's exactly what I used it for: a reference and a guideline.
As a reference, the book offers recommendations for books, websites, games and more. While the recommendations—particularly the URLs—are mostly out-of-date now, they were incredibly helpful during the pre-Internet years, back when I first started homeschooling. Thanks to Rebecca Rupp, my kids and I were introduced to:
As a guideline, Home Learning Year By Year was essential to me because my kids straddled multiple grade levels throughout their homeschooling years. I would skim the chapters to get a sense of how my children were doing in various subjects and adjust my plans accordingly. For example, if at the age of seven my daughter was already comfortable with "fourth-grade" mathematics but hadn't yet figured out how to use a dictionary, I might spend a little time showing her how guide words work instead of recommending yet another math game to her.
Home Learning Year By Year was a book I turned to again and again because it comforted me to see that even though I wasn't dictating what my children should learn from one year to the next, they were always making progress, mastering different skills each year. I took Ms. Rupp's wise advice to heart, and I share it with you here:
I remember when I first came across her book. I was feeling anxious, eager to try something new but not entirely sure how to go about it. I hadn't been homeschooling for long, maybe a few months, but I had already reached a point where I knew the curriculum I'd borrowed from the school wasn't going to work for us. The pre-planned activities were contrived and unrelated to my daughter's interests, and she quickly became bored with the worksheets and textbooks. Now what? I wondered. My trouble was that I had no experience with designing my own curriculum. I'd been assuming I'd be able to depend on McGraw-Hill, Pearson and Houghton-Mifflin to lead the way.
Home Learning Year by Year was just what I needed at the time. It offered me guidance without being prescriptive. Instead of mandating "What Your First Grader Needs to Know," it outlined a typical program of study while allowing for individual differences. Her goal was to help parents become familiar "with the general course of the standardized educational curriculum," but only so that they could use it "as a reference point and a guideline rather than a set of predetermined assignments."
And that's exactly what I used it for: a reference and a guideline.
- Funny history books by Kathleen Krull and Jean Fritz
- Entertaining math stories, creative hands-on activities, and the remarkable Marilyn Burns
- Janice Van Cleave's science experiments (for all grade levels)
- . . . and much more
Home Learning Year By Year was a book I turned to again and again because it comforted me to see that even though I wasn't dictating what my children should learn from one year to the next, they were always making progress, mastering different skills each year. I took Ms. Rupp's wise advice to heart, and I share it with you here:
"No parent should view the standardized curriculum as cause for worry. Children vary, and homeschoolers inevitably will find that their more-or-less first grader isn't quite standard. . . . The standardized curriculum can indicate academic areas in which kids need extra help and support—or creative substitutes and alternatives, or stress-reducing periods of being left alone. Variation, though, is normal, and our many individual differences are what make the world the interesting place it is. Kids are natural learners, and each will find his or her own best way to learn."
