I knew it would happen. I predicted it back in August. I said that Zachary would burn through any English that I threw at him. Thankfully because of Time4Learning it came without pressures and without stress. He set his own goals and this morning he read the line to me that he was so excited about “You have completed all the lessons in the second grade, please hit your back button and start in level three” or something like that.
Inside I was bursting with pride. Scott is home today and asked what that means. When I explained that he finished the second grade work in LA extensions he said “Oh really? Well that figures, should we start looking into colleges now?” and laughed. We had a little celebratory family “dance” and Zachary in his nonchalant way about him said “Can I finish my school work now?”
YAY for us! Now it is time to “push” the older one a bit more…. I was the older sibling to a younger one that surpassed me, the age difference between my brother and I and my two boys is about the same. I hated when my little brother was compared to me but I don’t know what to do about what is going to happen between my oldest and my youngest when that time comes. Any suggestions would be great. I know all the normal stuff, “everyone is different, everyone learns differently, etc etc… blabla…” What do you really say to an older sibling when the younger one is passing them by? Of course then you have the little one trying to “pump up the older one” with comments like “Your really good at reading Q..” Yea, I loved that when my brother would say something to me like that…….
Thanks in advance for any and all suggestions you might have.
Sonja Philip
November 12, 2007 | 3:29 pm1
Tracy,
I have a similar situation with a younger child who seemed to be hot on the heels of the older one. We started homeschooling because my oldest had speech development difficulties that hindered his learning. Public schools wanted to keep watering down his work rather than help him get up to speed - but that’s not my point…..
Once we started homeschooling, I spent a couple of years fumbling around trying to find our groove, so to speak. Most of that time, I was able to school my boys on about the same grade level, though they are 3.5 years apart. My youngest was a very good “technical” reader (he sounded out words really easily). We had him up a grade level on many things and my oldest down a grade level and kept them about even. This was mostly for my sake as I was putting together my own curriculum. I could tell that my oldest was not thrilled with the fact that he was doing work on the same level as his brother and most of the time, being blown back by his brother’s speed.
Then we found T4L and I sort of put them into their own grade levels, the youngest in 2nd and the oldest in 4th. Given a specific list of lessons, my oldest bore down and finished 4th AND 5th grade in one calendar year! He’s now in 6th grade and doing quite well. His brother is in 3rd grade and has intermittent struggles. My oldest skipped past a good “technical” reading phase and went straight to flying through books, reading them for pure fun and having amazing comprehension (tho he still has difficulty when asked to sound words out). He uses his allowance money to buy more and more books on his own.
Roles have been reversed back to what some might see as normal. I wouldn’t be surprised to see them flip back and forth more over the years. or they may not…. who knows.
Here’s what we did….. We praised them both - tremendously and all the time for their own accomplishments. yes, sometimes, we could see the other feeling “less”. That cant be helped, tho we almost never _compared_ them, particularly in areas where they were disparate in ability. No matter what you do - even if you had twins only seconds apart - there is going to be competition of some form and hurt feelings and such. I believe the trick is to not show favoritism, by comparing them unfavorably or by praising one more than the other or less, OR by “false” praising one just so he doesn’t get left out. Then I am thankful that any time I fail in that or it still doesn’t work no matter what I do, GOD is there and covers it all.
sonja
Tracy
November 5, 2007 | 5:58 pm2
I was mistaken, it was not LA extensions it was Language Arts that he completed.
Kat
November 2, 2007 | 11:39 am3
Yay Zach!! How exciting! When you said you thought he would blow through the lessons, you weren’t kidding! :o) I’m very proud of Z. Tell him to come help Bailey! Ha! :o)