subject: Choosing the Best Homeschooling Curriculum For Your Child [print this page] Choosing the Best Homeschooling Curriculum For Your Child
Homeschooling has become a more popular option for many parents today. Homeschooling involves only your son or daughter and you or a tutor in the never-ending quest for knowledge. This gives the parent the chance to lead his son or daughter towards academic and social development. While this is a good option for you and your son or daughter, homeschooling your child presents a lot of logistical challenges. This article will describe how to get past one hurdle which is choosing a homeschooling curriculum that will serve your children best.
The curriculum best suited for your child is dependent on your child's current age, abilities and educational level. It is important to note that the curriculum should be tailored to your child's interests, capabilities and age because if not, the purpose of all this will be defeated. There are five key factors that one must consider in picking a good curriculum for your child.
1. Reading Comprehension and Communication Skills
This is one of the most basic lessons that any homeschooled child must take a good hold of. Every step of the way is based on this skill. Vocabulary, sentence construction, context clues and other subject matters are involved here. Communication too, is very important. Teaching your child to express himself well in both written and oral means is an essential lesson, especially in this fast-paced world. This will allow him to have good public relation skills.
2. Problem-Solving Skills
This is best taught by adding lessons in math and science to your child's homeschooling curriculum. Math and science encourages children to analyze problems and situations better and with insight. For example, giving math problems or teaching the scientific method to children and giving them a chance to apply it through experiments would teach them how to process information systematically and logically.
3. Values
As parents, we teach our children proper etiquette, manners and different values that help build their character. Incorporating this in the curriculum would help the child see meaning in the abstract things that he is taught. For example, teaching them the value of helping others would give meaning to the innovations they would think of in their science experiments.
4. Technology
What better way to help your child cope with the modern times but through equipping him with computer know-how? Basics such as word processing to advanced lessons such as web design and graphic design are some of the things worth teaching to your child.