Here you'll find my old homeschooling blog. Linda's Homeschool WebLog was one of the first homeschool blogs on the internet, if not THE first. When I started it, I didn't know of any others, and for a long time I felt like the only one. Eventually other homeschoolers caught on and I started feeling like a small frog in a big pond.

Anyhow, the complete archive is here, for your perusal. The blog is retired.

I no longer homeschool, but I've started a new homeschool blog, believe it or not. You'll find it here: Independent Homeschooling. I'm a major advocate for homeschooling without government control.

Speaking of government control, many homeschoolers are unfortunately targets of child welfare services. In case that ever happens to you, you may get some use out of my most popular blog which has helped hundreds of families: Fight CPS.

And if you just want to know something more about me, check out my writing blog: Perspectives on Writing.

I no longer homeschool. My youngest child is 17, and the others are all adults.

Have a wonderful day, and Happy Homeschooling!  ¶ 1:18 PM  

 

Strange Christmas Present

I never thought I'd like this for a Christmas present, but it is working out good for me.

On Christmas day I volunteered to help serve the Happy Camp Community Christmas dinner. It is a small town community tradition, and lots of fun.

Anyhow, I was busy slicing pumpkin pies when L. showed up to help. She's the special education teacher at the local high school. And I couldn't help but start talking to her about my 15-year-old son whose reluctance to learn to read has been the low point of my homeschooling life for eight years now.

Anyhow, the outcome of all this is that she offered to test him and by the time school re-opened in January, I was ready to enroll him, not just have him tested.

Why?

Well, why does any homeschooling parent give up?

It wasn't something I wanted to do, and if there had been any private school within 70 miles I might have chosen that option.. but we live way out in the country, about 75 miles from the nearest private school, and there are no tutoring programs for dyslexics around here. None... other than through public school.

And that's what my son really needed.

That is the bottom line really. We have to do whatever it is the children really need, and for my son, that's going to the special ed program in the local public school, which is the only school available here.

So anyhow, my homeschooled son is now a student at the local highschool taking most of his classes in the special ed classroom, along with welding and PE. He's great at welding, according to the teacher, but that's no surprise to me. That kind of thing is his specialty. But he's also willing to go for the daily reading and math lessons and that's so much better than how he was doing in homeschool this year, skipping as many lessons as he could get away with... and at this point I felt he shouldn't be skipping anything. Self motivation was lacking.

So my life as a homeschooling mother is over, sad to say. But I'm still a homeschooler at heart and am currently developing a homeschooling website which will launch in about another week, maybe two. I'm planning to share what I learned during the nine years I homeschooled.

Homeschooling would have been so much better for us if my son had been willing to learn how to read.

All those articles I've read about how unschooled children miraculously learned to read at age 10, 12, or 14 didn't help us. We waited to age 10 for him to take an interest in reading, then required him to learn phonics and letters. But though we tried a number of methods, he never learned to read fluently. The miracle never happened... only continual struggles. And well, for me, it is over now. I hope the experts can help him in the ways I wasn't able to.

For a bit of reference - this was my fifth (and last) child and all the others learned to read as preschoolers or early in their elementary school years.  ¶ 3:59 PM