Learning Pace Can Make or Break Successful Homeschool Progress!

Your child's unique learning pace is the most crucial piece of the puzzle

Let's take a little journey back to J. Anne's (me) first college chemistry class...I was already over 30 years old and my goal of a career in the sciences meant, of course, that I had to take some chemistry.

I'm a smart woman and I usually know my limitations, but having to drop chemistry that semester because I couldn't keep up almost killed my self esteem. I seriously went into the advising office and changed my major from Biology to English.

English I could do, chemistry and trig - not so much.

I listened to a few pep talks from some close friends and finally decided to change back and give chemistry another chance. Instead of taking the higher level I figured this old girl needed something more basic and so I took the level that wasn't going to transfer to the university instead, knowing full well that I would have to take another general chemistry class later.

To my surprise I did very well in that chemistry class. In fact, I got a B+ for the semester and didn't even bother to study for a couple of tests.

What was the difference?

Well, there were a few of them, but learning pace was definitely one thing that contributed to my eventual success.

1. The class went just the teeniest bit slower than the other one
2. The teacher was just the teeniest bit better, and
3. The students sitting around me were just the teeniest bit more confused than I was!

All that mattered to my successful completion of general chemistry back in junior college and what-do-ya-know I went on to take and EXCEL in many more chemistry classes. In fact, my Master's degree is in Toxicology if you can believe it! I bet that first teacher, the one whose class I had to drop out of, never thought I'd have a graduate degree in chemistry!

I could tell you many more stories of how I tried and failed but instead of giving up I readjusted and found success, but this isn't really about me. It is about you and your child.

I'm sure there are many reasons why parents ultimately make the decision to bring their kids home from school, but most of them see that their child's needs just aren't getting taken care of in a big institution. Like mine in that small community college class.

Perhaps, you might wonder, if he only had a little more time to digest a lesson before being forced to move on to the next topic, he would perform better?

Ya think?

Here is one of the biggest secrets to success of modern homeschooling...learning pace can be adjusted to suit the needs of the child.

It is such a basic thing, this pacing, yet crucial to academic achievement. I'll let you in on something that some parents just looking into homeschool might not know...most of us seasoned homeschoolers don't give out grades.

Who needs grades at home? Seriously, think about this for a minute. When my kids do math, they do math until they "get it". Once they get it - we move on. We don't ever MOVE ON if they haven't gotten it, so technically speaking they could never get anything lower than say, a public school B.

Grades become obsolete because you will no longer measure your child's progress based on how many they got right or wrong. You will measure it by knowing that they "got it" and the concept has been mastered.

Learning pace - just another weapon in the homeschool arsenal.

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