In approximately a month from now, I’m going to seriously figure out how to juggle in a set homeschool schedule with my little guy, Jed. Right from when he was an infant, we were already set on homeschooling him. My husband and I have peace with it despite the odds. Odds are usually spelled relatives who actually think that homeschooling a child is withholding him from a handful of things. While our primary purpose f is the exact opposite of withholding him anything – we want to actually give our son the best education there is available while his parents, still being his primary influencer, which we believe, is very important.
While homeschooling may be our preference, it is not an absolute. There are families that homeschooling will not be the best option. Unless the parents are wholeheartedly into it, the family will not be able to maximize the benefits of homeschooling. There really are a lot of dynamics when it comes to this matter.
Even as we are set on homeschooling our son, we were also open to the possibility of getting him enrolled in a regular school after preschool. We had peace with it, I guess it helps a lot that my husband and I have one heart regarding this matter.
This coming June my husband and I are going to have our son assessed. We are pretty sent on using the School of Tomorrow’s (SOT) curriculum. It used to be known as Accelerated Christian Education or ACE. From the assessment that he will undergo, we will know if our son will be enrolled in Preschool with Ace and Christi or ABCs of Ace.
Preschool with Ace and Christi is a program for children who have been tested NOT ready to read, while ABCs of ACE is for children tested READY to read. And more than just the child’s knowledge of the letter sounds, there are a whole lot of other things to consider to pass the assessment for reading readiness. A child’s fine motor skills, for instance. My son has been reading simple three and four letter words from age 2. That gives me confidence that he is reading ready. He has to score 80% to pass the assessment. But the idea is not to be pressured to have the child pass, because if his other skills would mean he has to go through the first level, then that would give him a better grasp of the skills he has yet to learn to get to the next level.
Needless to say, I am both thrilled and nervous. This is going to be a major milestone for our family. I am thrilled to have this blog journal our journey towards homeschooling with the hope that this will encourage other homeschooling families as well in the future.