Homeschooling Confessions

Homeschooling confessions: 

I am sure I will have many more as the years go on but here is confession #1:

We are quitting preschool.

Alice turned 4 last September and I thought it was a good time to start preschool with her.

She has always been a little behind other kids her age in comprehension so I knew I needed to have realistic expectations and take it slow with her.  My main goal was to teach her the names and sounds of all the letters.  Apparently, this goal wasn’t realistic for her. 

It’s been about 7 months now.  We are on the letter N and have been on it for 4 weeks now and she still doesn’t remember it. 

We review all the previous letters each time and I thought she was doing well with that but I recently realized that she can’t recognize most letters when they are out of sequence.  Also, most of the other teaching goals I had haven’t been met.  

And though I have continued to lower my goals and expectations as we have gone on, school has just become frustrating for both of us.  So I have decided to quit.  I know this sounds bad, but I don’t think Alice is ready yet and forcing school on her is just going to make both of us frustrated, make her hate school and she probably wont really learn anything anyway. 

We will begin preschool again in the Fall using My Father's World curriculum and by then hopefully her brain will have developed more and be ready for more formal learning.  There are always many opportunities for informal learning and we continue to read lots of books. 

I worry sometimes but I remind myself that she’s only 4 and it’s not like she will be 14 and not know her alphabet.  She will get there eventually, on her own time, at her own speed (one of the many benefits of homeschooling).  I myself am an example of this.  I was not a good reader when I was little and hated it.  But around 8/9 years old it finally clicked and I became that child that would read under the covers with a flashlight at night because I couldn’t get enough of it.  I have been an avid reader ever since.  (I even read War and Peace for fun last year :) 

So that's where we are with our homeschooling adventure.