I am often asked the ever daunting question of why I started homeschooling. Most people figure its because we are very strict religiously or that I think Im better than someone who has been educated to teach children. I never had plans to homeschool the kids and like most people thought homeschoolers were just a bit odd!
Our story starts way back when our youngest Matthew started in K. I had started him the fall right after he turned 5 in April. We decided to put him in a charter school versus a public school feeling that his education would be better with smaller classes. We were excited to have been chosen for the brand new charter school in our area. Matthew started K just as my husband, Greg, joined the Army so off to boot camp he went. The first half of school seemed to go pretty good. Matthew never really enjoyed all the stories I tried to read to him. He knew his alphabet, could write his name and knew how to write most letters. After the first semester of school I was called in for conference with the teacher and I voiced my concern at his struggling with reading and that I really wondered if he was dyslexic based on what he struggled with. I was told then that it was never even considered till 4th grade and that he was fine. We finished out the year and then moved to Fort Rucker, Alabama just in time for him to start first grade. First grade again brought many concerns and meetings with teachers. I again expressed my concern that his handwriting was so bad, spelling was awful,and he still was behind in reading. They decided to start him in a remedial reading program. The program seemed okay at first. He met with a reading teacher a few times a week and was sent home books to read on top of his regular work. The problem was that he read the same 3 books over, and over, and over again for a month. By the 3rd time reading the book he had the thing memorized and it was pointless. They seemed to be dropping the ball and noone would listen. By the end of the year I was so frustrated with the process that I was not going to lose any more time and we decided to start homeschooling in second grade.
Third grade was a very trying year. We spent the majority of our time reading, reading,and reading some more. Working on phonics, spelling, and comprehension. He finally seemed to be going in a positive direction but it was s-l-o-w! As time went on I started picking up that he spelled and read words leaving out verbs completely! After some research I found that this is a common issue with kids with dyslexia. I began to dive into what kids with dyslexia need and how they see their world of reading. By fourth grade I had a totally different outlook on what Matthew needed. All the phonics the teachers and myself were teaching him were pointless. He needed to see patterns and just memorize! His eyes were seeing words wrong!
The biggest and best thing we did for him was to purchase a kindle. We did this over the nook because of the text to speech option. He need to relearn and retrain his eyes to read words correctly. He of course loved the cool little gadget so it was not hard to get him to finally WANT to read.
At this stage he is starting 7th grade this year. Homeschool has had to adapt and change every year based on his strengths. He is fantastic at math and science. He soaks up and loves history so all of those things are not a struggle except for him in reading the text. He is currently at a 6th grade reading level which is much improved from back a few years ago. His spelling is the worst problem area by far. We are working on that but I have come to an understanding that like me spelling will be a thorn in his flesh for life. I had to learn by just memorizing. It didnt come to me easily and still does not but being aware of that you are sort of checking yourself all the time. We will be starting a Bob Jones spelling program this year which I hope will be helpful. We are also looking into a few specific programs for kids with dyslexia.
As we started this journey to help Matthew get the help he needed we have seen so many more benefits to homeschooling that I really imagined. This is a crazy,scary world and I am so glad to have my children home with me as long as possible. I cannot see putting them in a public school environement the way society is these days. Not everyone has the option to homeschool and I feel very blessed for God to have allowed me to work from home and the patients (most days) to be their teacher. Im not perfect at it and I strive to do better each year. Yes, the are socialized and yes they are happy to be homeschooled. They are not awkward or weird like I though "homeschool kids" were and we get to open up an entirely new world to them. They not only learn math, science, reading, history, etc but they also learn hands on taking care of a farm with animals, money budgeting, cooking, household requirements, auto care, and simple hard work.
This coming year I really hope for an awesome year of learning not just from our books but from eachother. I look forward to the field trips and projects we will plan and being able to be a part of it! My prayer is that I will be able to be a full-time homeschool mom. Its so difficult balancing my MT work and then putting the teacher hat on. Financially I need to be working so thats what I will do, for now, but I would love to be able to go back to homeschool exlusive before long.
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