Hang out with homeschoolers long enough and you’ll hear talk of grade levels. Your kid’s reading at a grade three level. Mine is doing things that are part of grade five science, and she’s only in kindergarten. As per usual with parents, we don’t tend to highlight when our kids are underachieving, so most of the conversation tends to focus on how divergent our kids are from the norm of the school system, how much farther ahead they are in certain areas. As a parent of a kid who is above average, below average, and distinctly average in different areas, this can make me feel downright squeamish. You see, I feel that in many ways, using grade-level work as a reference point is somewhat arbitrary.
My kid? I’d say she’s reading at a kindergarten level. In kindergarten. It’s all good. Unless I see any problems, I’m not going to sweat it. I was a great reader, and I am sure she’ll be just fine too. I’m sure that she’ll enjoy books as she grows, and that’s what matters.
She’s writing at a level that is probably slightly below grade level. However, children advance at different rates, and fine motor control has never been her strong suit. We’ll continue working on this, because honestly I just don’t think that she’s all that ready to write. We work on it, and she does relatively well, but it’s still hard to get that pencil making those little marks.
She’s wonderful at oral language. She probably talks like a child who’s much older than her age. While it’s flattering to be told that she sounds advanced, that’s just how my child talks, and that’s great. I’m looking into opportunities for her to exercise her verbal skills, hopefully in another language.
As a homeschooler, you may need to go by the grade-level curriculum to some degree, depending on what is allowed in your particular part of the world. However, in the elementary grades so much of the curriculum is fairly flexible and also rather random. As a science educator for many, many years, I see no reason why much of the local science curriculum is placed in certain grades.The kids learn about space, about motion, about habitats, and all of this happens in different grades. But honestly, it’s just fine if your child wants to learn about space in grade one and it’s part of the grade five curriculum. In the end, it really doesn’t matter all that much. In reading, writing, and math, one thing might follow another to a degree, but my kid wanted to write before she wanted to read. That might be backwards, but that was what interested her. We’ll get to both this year.
How can we support our kids without focusing on grade levels? We can add support for our children where they falter, and all children falter somewhere, no matter what their age or intelligence or family situation. We can create opportunities for children to explore what gets them excited, no matter how old they are and what grade level they might be in. We can move beyond the focus on where our children are supposed to be and think about who they are, what they love to learn, and how they enjoy learning.
What matters most is that you support and connect with your child’s interests and with the areas that warrant some work, whatever level they happen to be.
Image courtesy of shho at Stock Exchange.