Should You Homeschool Your Gifted Child? The National Home Education Research Institute estimates that 1,900,000 U.S. students were educated at home in the school year 2000-2001. According to the institute, the number has risen by some 7-15 % each year (Ray 1997). Once viewed as a radical educational alternative practiced by Christian extremists and leftist hippies, homeschooling has now garnered favor from such scions of mainstream America as Time, Business Week and Newsweek magazines and National Public Radio. Colleges across the country are recognizing the unique je ne sais quoi of their applicants who were educated at home. Stanford University, in a recent article, calls this desirable quality "intellectual vitality." Noted for their self-direction, independence, and emotional maturity, homeschoolers excel in an academic environment that offers more freedoms than those to which institutional school children become accustomed. Homeschoolers make a seamless transition into the adult world because they spent their childhoods interacting with peers of differing ages, from children much younger to adults much older. Not handicapped by the lock-step academic advancement of institutional school, the homeschooler may find himself ready for college at an earlier age than his age-mates. Combine such academic acceleration with typical homeschooling poise and confidence and you see why some colleges are actively pursuing homeschoolers for admission onto their campuses. Researchers Say Yes! Homeschooling offers unique benefits for the parent of a gifted child. Kathi Kearney, founder of the Hollingworth Center for Highly Gifted, says, "homeshooling allows the ideal educational program for a highly gifted child to unfold, by providing maximum flexibility in the spirit of the best traditions and the strongest research bases we have in the field of gifted education. This includes the use of acceleration, intense and focused enrichment, flexible pacing, mentorships, internships, early college, and summer programs." Regardless of your child's level of giftedness, he will benefit from an individualized approach to education. This fact is amplified when the gifted child demonstrates a trait called asynchrony, which means the presence of differing levels of ability. As a parent I appreciated homeschooling's flexibility when six-year-old Octavian was two to three grade levels ahead in math but still not reading. I knew that institutional schools would have had a problem accommodating his needs properly since they spanned as many as five grade levels simultaneously. I, however, had no problem with our school-of-many-levels. I read advanced science books (about astronomy and physics) to him, bought him stimulating geometry project materials and books, helped him struggle with baby readers and ran him around to museums and educational demonstrations. Popular Homeschooling Methods Today's popular homeschooling methods are varied. Textbook curriculum, unschooling, Living Books, Classical approach, Unit Studies and Delayed Academics are six educational methods that espouse specific theories, material, and pedagogies. Textbook: Most textbooks and workbooks present material to be learned in an incremental bite-size manner; to be consumed daily, with mastery attained by year's end. Unschooling: An unstructured learning approach defined by John Holt that relies upon the child's innate desire to learn about the world. Unschooling may be called "child-directed" learning as its basic premise involves allowing the child to pursue his own interests with guidance and support from the parent. Charlotte Mason: (Living Books): Based on the writings of Charlotte Mason, favors the use of excellent literature and life experience as educational material for learning. With a distinctly Christian flavor, the method emphasizes narration and dictation of passages from books for the inculcation of traditional Christian values. Classical Approach: The classical approach is a structured system that relies heavily on classical literature of Western Society as a foundation for teaching the skills of logical thought, discussion and debate. Often including instruction in Latin, Greek and Hebrew, this method equips the child with superior language and thinking skills. Unit Studies: Parents who use that unit studies approach teach math, science, history, languages and the arts around a common theme or subject All grade levels can learn together when one subject is the family's focus and each of the 3R's become more relevant when related to one another through a common theme. Delayed Academics: a Christian homeschooling advocate named Dr. Raymond Moore pioneered this approach. His research involves raising children in the parent's adult world to develop responsibility, good habits, morality and values. Dr. Moore's brain research provides a stern warning against formal reading instruction prior to the age of eight. Which One is Best For Gifted Children? All of the popular homeschooling methods have merit and many families have used them successfully to educate their children. When we first began homeschooling seven years ago I sampled each of these methods and hoped to find that one of them would fit our family perfectly. The local Christian homeschooling support group advocated the popular "canned" curriculums relying exclusively on textbooks and consumables, such as Bob Jones University and ABeka. The secular homeschoolers I knew tended toward a Waldorf approach. My personality lent itself to unschooling while my husband preferred a structured academic environment. Each method had its advocates and all those options were a little confusing. Which method did I pick? The Eclectic Method! I knew that I wanted to work with my children's learning styles, not against them. I also knew that I cared more about my children learning than making good grades. I believed that my children's natural curiosity about the world would drive them to learn and I didn't want to squelch that desire. So, I crafted an organic ever-changing system of education that would meet my children's needs while assuaging my husband's desire for order in our home. How did I do that? Well, I simply borrowed elements of all six of the popular homeschooling methods and mixed them to suit each child. The Charlotte Mason/Living Books approach relies on library picture and storybooks as a cornerstone for learning. The studies of science, history and world cultures come alive when learned through library books. This aspect of the Living Books method became the most important facet of our homeschool. I eschewed history and science textbooks because they are full of dry bite-size pieces of information and do not offer children enough color, excitement or human interest. We have read literally hundreds of easy reader and junior children's books on the subjects of animals, dinosaurs, weather, astronomy, geology, botany, gardening, anatomy, health, atoms, physics, physical science, chemistry and more. We read about different cultures and their countries' histories such as Native Americans, Greeks, Egyptians, American Colonists, Eskimos, Japanese, Chinese, Roman, Aborigines, and medieval English through both storybooks and fact books. My web page called Beth's Library describes in greater detail our use of the local library and how we used library books as a curriculum. Imagine a wheel and the hub of that wheel is Living Books. All of the other homeschooling methods radiate out from that hub and may be present in different proportions depending upon the specific needs of each child. Unschooling's emphasis on following the child's interests informed our selection of reading material. Antony sparked our family's interest in ancient Egypt. Octavian drove the Native American craze and little Scarlet keeps us all dreaming of owning a horse farm someday with her love of horse stories. The Unschooling Handbook subtitle is How to Use the Whole World As Your Child's Classroom and I have never heard a more fitting description of how we homeschool. After reading a jillion books on a subject we cook ethnic meals, visit museums, read websites, watch movies, listen to music, attend lectures and build, sculpt, draw or create just about anything pertaining to that subject. Short of traveling to that particular time or place, we immerse ourselves in the subject and eat, sleep and breathe it. This mania is akin to the unit studies approach. Another spoke in our homeschooling wheel, unit studies seeks to orient all math and language study around a single subject. While I do not go so far as to make math problems about Japan and ask the children to write about Japan while immersed in a study of Japan, I have noticed that they may write or draw Japanese inspired pieces simply because they are captivated by that subject. The notion of studying a subject until one becomes a dilettante is quite close to the innate drive for subject mastery exhibited by some highly gifted children. Gifted children of all levels appreciate continuing the study of a subject until they are ready to move on. We elongate our unit study until everyone is satisfied. Due to the differences in the children's learning styles, one may desire a textbook sooner than another. Antony asked recently, at eleven, for the Saxon 54 math book and after years of piddling in simple math workbooks, took off with it. Scarlet, at eight, still has no desire for such a formal approach and I will honor that. For her, textbooks may come later. I like textbooks for a sequential presentation of math or science. Octavian enjoyed his dad's old college Chemistry textbook when he was nine. I have a tendency to view textbooks as a means to an end. If the child is in need of a tight systematic approach to a subject of some complexity, then by all means, a textbook works. But, the years preceding twelve seem to be those of pure discovery and learning joy and most children—even the highly gifted—prefer a more hands-on approach. Of course, some profoundly gifted children, like Octavian crave advanced work very early and these children benefit from using a college textbook because it satisfies their deep drive to learn. Homeschooling parents like Leila Levi have raised children ready for such work before the age of five! The Classical Approach relies heavily upon time-honored classical literature that used to be the bedrock of our country's educational system. I encourage my children to read the classics. We have sets of these wonderful books and I may go to great lengths to pique their interest by purchasing an extensive library of illustrated pocket classics or renting movies that are re-makes of particular classics. We especially enjoyed Les Miserables, Moby Dick, any of Kenneth Brannaugh's Shakespearean movies and when a movie digresses from the book, as in the case of Last of the Mohicans, we have a great time talking about the differences between the great literary work and Hollywood. We have used the Rummy Roots game and the workbook English From the Roots Up to learn Latin and Greek root words commonly used in the English language. Each of the children will approach Latin through a formal textbook study when ready. Octavian plans to take it as a college class this fall at William and Mary. As is common with first-born children, Octavian was my guinea pig and received the most intensive reading instruction. While I created a unique method for reading instruction in order to soften the damage early reading would do him (especially if he didn't initiate reading), I still pushed him. Our reading program was certainly not aggressive by any normal stretch of the imagination. Octavian wasn't reading fluently until eight and a half. With the other two, however, my husband's concerns were put to rest and we all pretty much cruised. Antony used my system for reading instruction and didn't read fluently until almost ten. Scarlet, on the other hand, begged for instruction and had to go to her brothers for help due to my reluctance to teach her to read before the age of eight. I still believe the Delayed Reading approach is sound for most children although some profoundly gifted children may teach themselves to read as early as two! Scarlet got around my inattention and was reading with fluency by six and a half (that little rascal!) An Eclectic Method Pioneer Comments:
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