We all want a homeschool curriculum that helps our children learn. Each homeschooling family defines educational success in its own way. Most would say teaching to their child’s learning style is key. For my family, an excellent educational foundation in reading, writing,  and arithmetic is essential.

There are the visual learners (pictures, what they see), the auditory (listening, talking) learners, and the kinesthetic (physical, hands on) learners. Most of our kids don’t learn solely via one learning style. Many learn from a combination of two, or maybe even all three learning styles. Homeschool curriculum is expensive and most of us don’t have a ton of money to spend on it; buying a homeschool program like a “school in a box” curriculum for a certain grade level and finding out it doesn’t work is a major disappointment and a huge financial loss.

Interactive homeschool curriculum is one that many kids take to quickly, and it has elements in it that teach to all three learning styles; it fits in with the interactive games today’s kids play and is part of learning in the 21st century. My son, David, has benefited greatly from an online homeschool curriculum; it brought the visual, auditory, and kinesthetic learning methods under one umbrella which is perfect for him, since he learns all three ways.

Even better, you can usually get a trial period for these curricula; if it doesn’t work out for your child, you’re under no obligation. That’s good news during these economic times.

I never thought of myself as a particularly artsy and craftsy type of mom. Many moms are, and I admire them greatly. Despite my lack of art skills, my son loves to draw, is good at it, and has learned much from a how-to drawing book and an online art program.

Okay, when I first thought about it, online art sounded a bit strange to me; I thought, “Now that’s one subject you can’t learn online.” But then I thought about it a bit; I remember Microsoft Office WordArt and you actually could use it to draw online. My son tried it and liked it, along with learning some art basics. Now there are interactive programs that actually teach online art techniques, art history, and art theory.

When most kids think about art and drawing, it’s just a cool, fun thing for them to do. They usually aren’t concerned about art history and art theory; those interests are usually piqued later.

I wouldn’t say it’s time to throw the art books away, but I think learning art online, for some kids, might be an intro into the world of art and computers and actually lead to a career. For others, simply a fun break in the homeschooling day.

My son is only 10 but recently told me he wants to be homeschooled through high school. I often think, “Will I be able to rise to the challenge?” Do you have similar thoughts?

We attend a homeschool co-op, and there are several parents who are homeschooling their kids through high school. It seems to be a time of great concern for most of them. They’re concerned with keeping accurate records, making sure their children take the right classes (especially if the kids plan to go to college), applying to universities, and tons of other things on their to-do lists. Some have enlisted the aid of their local public schools, and their children have a part-time home school and part-time public school status. Other kids are homeschooled and take classes via community colleges and universities to ensure that they’ll learn those difficult subjects that their parents may not be able to teach them, i.e., Advanced English/Writing, Physics, Calculus, Chemistry, Foreign Language, and others.

There are parents who have decided to use online high school programs (both public and private) and others who are using high school writing programs. Writing is a subject I’ve heard parents say they don’t teach their high school children but serve more as a guide. High school online writing programs serve to give teens guidance and direct feedback on their writing. Some are geared toward essay writing, others toward standardized test writing, and still others toward research writing.

Lots of success stories are being shared via our homeschool co-op, i.e., school acceptances at Stanford, Oberlin, Wellesley, and Northwestern University, among others.

When the time comes, I’ll be praying that my son will be among those who are accepted at the university of his choice.

Please leave a comment sharing your experience with homeschooling through high school.

It didn’t take me long to get used to the idea of online homeschooling, because I began teaching my son at home via a home-based virtual public school that used online resources. They recommended that younger children do about fifteen to twenty percent of their work on the computer. I only used this home-based school for about six weeks, because I saw their curriculum wasn’t working for my son.

After this, I tried a labor intensive free curriculum that required me to print lots of books, keep lots of records, and spend lots of time preparing lessons. I did this for awhile, and for all my effort, I received an emphatic “boring” from my then 6-year-old son. So, I continued to search for an affordable curriculum. Homeschooling was becoming pure drudgery, and each day, I pieced together school work for my son, as I continued to search for excellent, affordable homeschool materials. I finally happened upon an online homeschooling curriculum that sounded too good to be true. I tried it out before I ever allowed my precocious 6-year-old to try it, and after reviewing a few Language Arts and Math lessons, I knew he would love it. I was right, and three and a half years later, he’s still loving it.

Online homeschooling resources can be helpful to your child and to you too. If your child is a visual, auditory, or kinesthetic learner, the online interactive lessons will keep her engaged. The online homeschool resources will help you too, because as your child matures, she will do her lessons independently, while you tend to your younger children or get things done around the house.

Once you begin using the online homeschooling materials, you won’t abandon your books, your unit studies, your hands-on projects, or your field trips; online resources will only be part of your home school, and your child will look forward to the lessons. You can even use those lessons to reward him for doing well with his other homeschool work.

You may have toyed with the idea of homeschool online but thought better of it, because you felt like the computer would be teaching your child instead of you. However, most homeschoolers use online homeschooling in combination with more traditional methods.

Homeschooling is all about freedom of educational choice and options. If online homeschooling materials work for your child, then don’t be afraid to use them. You may be a homeschooling mom who works from home and need some free time to check emails, answer phones, or search the internet. Online homeschooling materials will free you to do those things during the day and will also free your child to learn independent study and work skills.

Do you remember the commercials for “Hooked on Phonics?” “I am hooked on phonics. I am learning to read . . . ” Those lines are etched in my memory.

“Hooked on Phonics” was the way thousands of parents helped their children learn to read in the 80s and 90s. Some still use it, but now your child can be hooked on phonics online, because homeschoolers are avid users of the internet for educational purposes.

I used an online phonics curriculum to help my son learn phonics, along with workbooks, and of course, reading, reading, and more reading to him. He’s in 4th grade and is reading at 8th grade level. He loved the interactive piece where an onscreen character would pronounce a phonetic sound or word, and he repeated it.

Another part of intensive phonics online, my son loved was clicking on the right answer. The program would present him with a choice among three or more answers, then he would make his choice. If he got the answer right, the online character would clap or say, “Great job, you’re a phonics superstar!” or if the answer was incorrect, the character might say, “Almost got it, try again.” He would glow when he got the correct answer, and he would be challenged to keep trying if his answer was incorrect.

Children love this approach, because there are no “Xs” for incorrect answers–just encouragement to continue moving along the positive phonics path. For correct answers, there are lots of bells and whistles, and this serves as motivation for your child to keep up the excellent work.

There’s no doubt that intensive phonics is needed to teach a child to learn to read. Yes, there are sight words that don’t fit into the phonics rules, and there are always exceptions to those rules. But once your child learns phonics, she will become a better reader. She will always “sound out” new words, because that is what she’s learned.

Your child will apply all the phonics rules and word sounds to words he’s never seen before. Although he may not necessarily pronounce the new word correctly, when he applies what he’s learned, he’ll be closer to a correct pronunciation than those who learned to read by the whole language method.

Don’t you wish there had been online phonics when you were learning to read? My son found it to be a fun and exciting way to learn!

Share your experience with phonics by leaving a comment.