Disclosure: I received this complimentary product through the Homeschool Review Crew.
I’ve been looking over the resources offered by The HomeScholar LLC today. Their High School Solution has a wealth of information and encouragement for any homeschooling family! I listened to parts of both an online conference and a recorded live conference talk by Lee Binz, and read the handouts from these presentations. I didn’t have time to get through all their material, but enough to get a feel for what she offers.
The point that is stressed over and over is not to fear! You can do this! You can teach (or rather, direct) your children through high school! Lee gives a lot of information about what should be covered during high school, either to meet college entrance requirements, or simply to prepare for life. With each subject area, she talks about the types of classes or studies that high school students can take and how to use their interests to earn credit. What constitutes a credit, anyway? She tells what, and how to grade classes. One handout available is a planner to help make decisions about what classes to take each year of high school, in order to earn enough credits.
I found a paper about Research Facts on Homeschooling quite interesting. The statistics are from the United States, and are over ten years old, but very encouraging! People’s reasons for homeschooling are also reported here, and some of the results that are seen in homeschooled children as they mature.
I glanced over the materials included in a section titled How to Homeschool the Gifted Child. Not much in that group of talks and articles was very helpful to me; our children are not academically gifted, for the most part. Rather than having to keep up with a child who learns and understands easily what he/she learns in school, I’ve had to push most of mine all the way through! If you have academically gifted children, though, these resources would likely be very helpful. (I’m adding the term “academically” to “gifted” because I consider all my children gifted… but in different ways!)
The section about Homeschooling Struggling Learners is more helpful to me! Most of our children fall in that category. Some have had severe dyslexia; Simon still struggles to read and write. In this section is a talk by Hal and Melanie Young, offering suggestions for accommodations for struggling learners in high school and college. There are also a couple of articles offering advice and encouragement. Even people who struggle through high school can go on to college, with some help!
One piece of encouragement that stood out to me, as it was repeated many times throughout the materials I looked over was that each child is unique. We have to find what works for each one. By the same token, each family is unique. In our family, we have not put an emphasis on going to college or university. So far, our children have not needed it; two of the boys found themselves doing apprenticeships (which include lessons and assessments through a vocational school) in trades, and the third boy is hoping that an apprenticeship will open up for him soon, too, with the man for whom he has been working part time. If you are unsure what direction to go with your children’s high school, the High School Solution might be a good resource for you to look at. There is a lot of information about how to take the SAT and ACT tests here, as well as how to structure high school in general.
All that is under the How-To tab. I haven’t even started on the other tabs, which are labeled Ages, Stages, and Curriculum. And then, there are the bonuses. There is a lot of material here! If you need help or encouragement in homeschooling through high school, definitely check out The HomeScholar LLC. Click on the image below to read what other families have to say about this company, as well.
