Archive for the ‘Traveling Families’ Category
The choice to homeschool is not an easy one. The responsibilities are gigantic but the benefits can be fantastic.
Reasons for deciding to homeschool vary greatly from religious convictions to dissappointment in the public schools to families, because of parent’s work, having to move around a lot. Homeschooling means there is minimum interruption in learning because lessons can continue regardless of family situations.
Homeschooling is not easy. You are responsible to provide your child with an excellent education. And you must be careful you are not selecting this option to further some personal agenda.
The advantages are huge: it allows you to build strong, positive family relationships, provides a setting for teaching and sharing ideas and develops strong bonds of trust and open lines of communication that are so important with today’s children.
You have more flexibility in the curriculum you use and the school hours you keep. You are not limited to 1 or 2 field trips a year; you have the freedom to take full advantage of all the wonderful places to visit as well as cultural events taking place in your area. You never have to worry about snow days, swine flu, school violence, inappropriate peer pressures, etc.
However, many parents will sometimes have problems developing curriculum especially for their child as they get into upper elementary school and beyond. They may need more support in the teaching. Onine programs can help by offering you the support you need. They can deliver and monitor your child’s curriculum, process the academic portion of your portfolio, and free you up to work on the field trips and socialization aspects of your child’s education. It is a win, win situation.
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What makes virtual learning so different from the traditional method? One thing might be that it is limitless for the learner. The logistics a public school has to deal with: bus schedules, teaching contracts, building maintance, material allocations, budgets, school safety, behaviors, and the list goes on. They are limited as to where students can attend school, what hours they can attend, the materials they use for teaching, even how they teach if scripted lessons are used. All these many limitations which restrict schools also restrict the learners, our children.
Perhaps it is for these reasons as well as the changing way our children learn, online schooling has become much more acceptable over the past 10 years. Where virutal learning was mainly for college students, disabled children or home-schooled students, brick-and-mortar schools are turning to using online learning to supplement their curriculum allowing students to move at their own pace.
In fact, registrations have risen more then 50% since 2007. According to a report by iNACOL, about 44 states are offering full-time virtual schools through their public school system. Programs can be state-led or charter schools. Others occur through school-supplied computers and can take place either in the home or in computer labs within the school.
Susan Patrick, President of iNACOL, points out that “More and More parents and students are aware that we live in the internet age, and they want acess to educational opportunities, whether they’re offered over the internet or not.”
Virtual Schools allow for limitless possibilities by offering courses that can be tailored to the individual student or work to meet the needs of a school district. Students can receive an entire school program or get supplemental help in one or more classes.
But even as virtual education gains in popularity, challenges persist and misconceptions continue.
MetaMetrics has developed a free site which allows us to develop individualized programs for all children.
Who has access to the MetaMetrics site?
1.Teachers of any grade, any subject, from any where in US or internationally for that matter as long as they are teaching in the English language.
2.Parents who have their child’s Lexile score or a good idea of their child’s reading ability and interests. Parents anywhere, anytime can access this site, meaning military families on the go have access.
3.The CHILDREN themselves. How empowering is that!
Where can the child’s Lexile score be found?
1.Many state assessments now report back reading ability in Lexiles.
2.Some norm-referenced or achievement assessments taken in schools including:
a. CTB/ McGraw-Hill: TerraNova, Tests of Adult Basic Education, b. Pearson: The Stanford 9, Stanford 10, MAT 8 and Aprenda 3 (Spanish language test of academic standards,
c. Educational Records Bureau: ERB: Comprehensive Testing Program, 4th Edition,
d. Riverside Publishing: The Iowa Tests, Gates-McGinitie Reading Test,
e. DIBELS,
f. Measured Progress: PTS3,
g. Northwest Evalutation Association: Measures of Academic Progress (MAP)
What tools that are available to us?
1.Find a Book: The teacher, parent or child enters their Lexile measurement or lexile range, books of interest or using key words, and then search. You will be given a reading list to review. The program gives you the option to a) add to “my reading list”, b) use WorldCat to ind the books at a local library using your zip code, or c) buy it from Barnes & Noble which has lexiled their books.
2.Lexile Analyzer: You are required to register for this tool but it is free. This tool allows you to scan in up to 1000 words of material from a book, magazine, newspaper, etc. and get a lexile read. You are able to upgrade to measure longer text if you are an educator. There is both an English and Spanish analyzer.
3.The Lexile Database contains measures over 10,000 books from hundreds of publishers. There are separate databases for English and Spanish titles. You must sign a license agreement with them before they give you access to download.
4.The Lexile map places examples of popular books and text on the Lexile scale as a reference guide for what a Lexile measure means. This can be downloaded in English or Spanish.
5.MetaMetrics partners with the nation’s largest periodical database services. This means that you can get Lexile measures for newspaper and magazine articles, as well as encyclopedia and reference content. A few of these are:
a. EBSCO Publishing: leading provider of online resources for schools.
b. Grolier Online: Fully integrated database collection with age appropriate learning environments.
c. NetTrekker: Fast, easy access to educational resources from the entie Internet organized and standards-aligned.
It would be time well spent to explore their site and learn for yourself how Lexiles can change your approach to lesson planning as a teacher, reading and working with your child as a parent in the know, and taking charge of your own learning as a student.
While we all know that homeschooling is educating a child or children at home, the motivations for home schooling are not always as clear. There are several reasons for it:
1. Religion cited as a factor in their choice;
2. Poor or unsafe learning environment;
3. Objections to school curriculum;
4. Being over or under challenged at school;
5. Drugs, sexual harassment, bullying and negative peer-pressure.
Other reasons often cited are; more flexibility in the educational curriculum, more available times and days, better individualized support for children with learning disabilities, more consistent academics for children of missionaries, military families, or parents that travel as part of their career.