My 11 year daughter started 5th grade in middle school this year and is having a difficult time adjusting. She has 11 different teachers she has to deal with daily/weekly and is very stressed out trying to cope with the different personalities and transitioning from class to class. She is a slow processor and reader, a problem saying her “s”s, handwriting is laborious for her, and she is slow completing work sheets and assignments. She feels ackward, slow and stupid. She actually works very hard in school and makes mostly A’s. She is extremely bright and a very deep thinker but probably way too sensitive. (Can’t watch the scary scenes in a Disney movie.) Socially, she feels that she doesn’t have any friends. Fifth grade is a tough year for girls.
She asks me to homeschool about every day. I am not sure about homeschooling (lack confidence and have a job), but would be willing to look at correspondence courses for her. Is there such a thing for 5th, 6th, 7th, 8th grades? My son have taken a few in high school so I am comfortable with this.
Thank you,
SD Mom
Re: Are there correspondence courses for Middle School children?
Well I dont’ know about correspondence courses. The American University or something (?) has an outline curriculum. There are some very homeschooling friendly curriculum (www.mathusee.com), etc that carry different subjects. You don’t have to really know anything to do them (but it doesn’t hurt!). You could look for individual curriculum like that. There are online course guidelines I think.
—des
Re: Are there correspondence courses for Middle School children?
There are quite a few online courses, but I’m not sure that would be the best route for your daughter. You can find out what the possibilities are by posting a question on homeschooling boards at http://www.vegsource.com and http://www.welltrainedmind.com
Quite a few states now have online (or virtual) schools. Try calling your state organization that oversees schools. There is one in our state. Basically, you enroll your child in the school (it accepts children from all over the state) and then you email back and forth with the curriculum coordinator to settle on courses and materials. Often these are online resources or computer CDs that are provided by the school. These schools are not for every child, however, as they usually require a lot of online work and many parents find the curriculum choices restrictive.
Another possibility is a public charter school. Many states have these now. In our state a charter school must accept students from any district. These schools are often much more flexible in their approach, and you may find one with a format that suits your daughter’s learning style better.
It sounds to me as if your daughter’s learning style would be much more responsive to homeschooling. Believe it or not, this is the least-hassled route to go because you do not have to deal with institutions or bureaucrats. There is a wide variety of *wonderful* homeschooling curriculums available these days. Many are largely self-teaching (so the child can work independently), some are completely scripted (so you basically simply read your teaching lines from the book), and others are just plain excellent. In most cases the quality of these materials is far better than that provided in schools, and you have the added benefit of being able to select curriculums that truly match your daughter’s learning style. For example, much social studies and science at middle school level can be done by means of DVDs, television programs, videotapes, and computer CDs.
To get an idea of the vast wealth of homeschooling materials available, go to http://www.rainbowresource.com and request one of their printed catalogs. This catalog is about three inches thick and describes a wide variety of homeschooling curriculum materials for every subject and every age.
For your daughter, I would recommend starting out with Rewards from Sopris West (http://www.rewardsreading.com ). This is an entirely scripted program that develops multi-syllable word attack skills very quickly, and then goes on to develop speed and accuracy. Most children gain about two years or more in reading level from the 20 lessons in this book (about one hour per lesson). I have found that increasing the reading level of a child always boosts self-esteem and confidence, and that the benefits affect every other subject area (including math, which includes word problems).
My recommendation would be to homeschool, as I think you will find it to be much easier to do than you think.
Nancy
Well, it’s a big step to pull her out of school and please think seriously about this.
Many state and provincial governments have correspondence courses. I worked marking the junior high level in British Columbia. The courses were actually very well designed, although the administration did everything they could to undercut the course design and run kids through an assembloy line of trash.
Each state or province is different, but contact your department or ministry of education, work through the levels of denial and foot-dragging, and see what you find.
This would be the least expensive and would keep her onpar with her classmates.
If that shows up nothing, check out Peterson’s Guides — there are guides to correspondence courses and I believe one of them includes elementary and middle school. Some libraries have these, or you can order one.
If you want a very very strong Christian orientation, there is a series of courses called Alpha Omega. Their math is quite good although if you are not a fundamentalist you may quibble with some of their other subjects.