(This is the fifth post in a series of planning post, and the fourth post on planning for our homeschool.)

I was going to write about choosing curriculum today, but I'll save that for tomorrow afternoon.  I received a message this morning with a question about last night's post.  This mom wrote, "How do I determine what my child is ready for or capable of when setting goals for the next year?"  Ironically enough I had a scribbled note to remind me to talk about that in last night's post, but I completely forgot.  So before continuing on, I wanted to talk about setting appropriate goals.

As a parent, who spends copious amounts of time with your child, no one is going to know them like you do.  You know their likes and dislikes, you know what drives them, you know their strengths and weaknesses.  These things are invaluable in figuring out pretty much everything about homeschooling what goals to set, what kind of curriculum to buy, how fast to move through material. Everything.  To give you an idea of what that looks like, I ask the kids for permission to talk a little bit about their struggles and strengths when goal setting.

Last year after a particularly rough school year, we had some testing done with Britt.  We received the diagnosis of dyslexia and ADHD along with some other delays related to those two.  It is something I've not written about on the blogspot yet, because Britt hasn't been comfortable talking about it or sharing it with anyone outside of immediate family until very, very recently.  This greatly affects my goal setting.  Understanding that he has to work hard to read, and that it will always be more work for him, means that I'm going to need to break up our reading goals into smaller more manageable chunks.  I'm going to want to stretch him without pushing him to a breaking point.  It also means that some of the goals I set for him relate more directly to strengthening his weak areas, like executive functioning skills, working at getting him to plan and execute an idea on his own.  He also needs some Occupational therapy, so that is an area we are working on.  This will affect how neat his handwriting is and how long it might take him to learn to ride a bike.  Rather than yell at him for being 9 years old and still so messy or uncoordinated, I work with him at the level he is at, not some arbitrary point I think he should at.  It also means that we might work on some skills in an unconventional way.  For example, since reading is such hard work for Britt.  One of the ways he has worked on it this year, is by reading in his newest wii game.  It involves him accomplishing quest, which means he needs to be able to read clues, and talk to people to figure out the next step of the game.  This is something he enjoys and it is something that strengthens his reading skills.  Because if he misses a word, he has to read it again, to understand what it is that he needs to do.  In other areas like math he is a whiz, but I make allowances to help him read word problems and directions.

You will notice what I HAVEN'T told you to do.  I have not said, pull up your states standards for your child's grade.  I have not said, run down to the library and pick up a copy of "What your 1st Grader Needs to Know" in order to copy your goals.  I have checked out these books several years, and while sometimes they give me ideas of areas I might have over looked, they also typically make me feel inept because there's so much I don't have time to cover, or so much that the kids aren't ready for.  So, check them out if you want a starting point for some ideas, but don't be a slave to someone else's goals.  Many of the academic goals are arbitrary, why does an 9 year old need to learn about weather, why not a 7 year old or a 11 year old?  Others are written to keep a classroom of 25 moving together in a predictable fashion so that they all can continue moving together next year.  Nothing wrong with that but a necessity when you consider the number of students under different teachers moving up through a large school over multiple grade levels.  What you need to remember though, is the greatest advantage to homeschooling is moving at your child's speed and ability.  The custom education you can provide is only a benefit though, if you actually customize and adjust it for each child.

Britt is generally working on grade level, though he is behind for reading.  Ruth is generally working ahead of grade level, but she is pretty much on her grade level for reading.  Rebecca is definitely ahead of grade level right now.  However, these numbers don't really mean much for us.  Especially when you consider that we use a range of material our Phonics book was published in 1983, and one of our history resources that I want to use is coming out later this year for the first time.  What a 4th grader should know has changed alot over those 35 years.  Other curriculum such as Math U See doesn't even use grade levels.  I would highly encourage you to take the opportunity to think about where you'd like to see your kid progress to in the coming you; what their abilities, skills, and interest are; and what weaknesses you will need to work on or compensate for.