I have an 10 year old son with ADD and LD’s. He is having diffculties keeping up in a traditional school setting at a small private school with limited resources. I’m just beginning to look into homeschooling and was wondering if I contact my local county for homeschooling, does my son have to keep up with the counties curriculum just like every student or is there a different program for LD kids? Are there more options for homeschooling other then going through the board of ed in our county? How does that all work?
Re: Your best bet
is to first contact one of your state’s homeschooling organizations. Every state has at least one, and most states have several. To find these, try going to http://www.metacrawler.com and doing a search on “homeschooling whatever-your-state-is”. That’s how I found the homeschooling organizations in my state. Most operate hot lines, so you can call and leave a message, and have a knowledgeable homeschooler call you back with the information you need. These organizations are the absolute best and most reliable source of information. Many times educators and other parents mis-understand your state’s laws and give you very unreliable information.
Every state has different requirements for homeschooling. Most do not require you to follow a set or standard curriculum. Many homeschoolers do want to “keep up” in general with what schools are doing. There are websites that provide detailed curriculum goals for each grade — some for specific states. How you choose to attain these goals (should you choose them as your own) is usually left up to you.
In my state there is no difference between homeschooling a regular ed or LD child. The state requires that a homeschooler use a standardized test every year to measure progress, but does not require that these test results be disclosed to anyone. It does require parents to seek professional help if a child scores below the 30th percentile. Exactly what this help consists of is left up to the parent. However, your state’s legal requirements could be considerably different.
Mary
Where are you? An awful lot depends on your state. However, if he’s having trouble with a traditional school setting he will probably have trouble with the curriculum teh school system sets up for homeschoolers — it’s not like they’re likely to be more knowledgeable about LDs. THey’re far *less* likely to be able to set one up to meet your kid’s individual nee3ds - there’s no “LD curriculum” any more than there is any one “LD.” They’re more likely to say “bring him back to our wonderful public special ed system where we will design an individual program for him” (and you probably already know just how wonderful it is…)