My "about me" section provides some insight into our family, but let me dig a little deeper into our family dynamics - then I have a question. We are homeschoolers with three children, ages 8, 6 and 4. Excluding a few months of "dry run" with Belle at the end of her 5K year (we moved in March and started with her then) we really started two years ago when Belle was in first grade and Tink was in 5k. (they are 20 months apart in age but only one school year apart). The Boy has been enrolled in our church's Mothers Morning Out program for the past two years, giving my wife a chance to start with two before adding the third. This, in my humble opinion, was brilliant thinking on her part. However, his MMO program only met Tues - Thurs, so he was often in and around during school-time on other days and during "summer session".
Fast forward to today. We are starting to notice a trend, and I'm wondering if this is found among other homeschool families, particularly those with children close in age.
Example 1: What took Belle a full twelve months to learn last year (particularly math) has taken Tink about nine months. Why?
Example 2: Tink has struggled a bit with reading this year. She's getting it, but it's a lot of work for her. The Boy, on the otherhand, just caught up to her in the Phonics book we're using. And, he's showing a real talent for math as well; we're pretty sure we can knock out 5k math by the end of summer / mid fall, and then he'll be off into 1st grade level.
Thoughts?
One hypothesis, particularly in Tink's math example, is that it's because she was sitting right there listening all of last year while Belle did her lessons. There had to be some osmosis going on, because she's "clicking" a whole lot faster.
However, that doesn't necessarily apply to The Boy, as he is only around for classes two days a week (and often spends that time playing with blocks, not sitting at the table in the school room).
What various factors might be at play? I don't know all of them, but my guess is that homeschool families, where children of different ages and skills learn together (at least a lot of the time) see younger children gain some skills faster than the trail-blazing older kids.
(author's note: this is not at all pleasing to Belle. "It's not fair!", she complains, that Tink gets to move so quickly!! And, yes, lectures on "life's not fair" followed immediately.)
Thoughts from the blogosphere?
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6 comments:
a) all kids are different
b) the younger kids do tend to learn from the older ones, but not always - sometimes they want to go in a completely different direction i.e. with potty training.
c) I guess that is the joy and frustration of homeschooling (?)
p.s. I am enjoying your blog very much - thanks!!!!!
Very interesting observation! And while my kids are much younger than yours, I'm suspecting that we'll be seeing a lot of the same in years to come.
I think you and lune have hit on most of the reasons. For one thing, the younger kids are around the older ones during their lessons, and there is some osmosis going on.
For another thing, there is tremendous variation in abilities between different kids--even from the same family. Some are just better at one subject or another than their siblings; some are simply more academically inclined in general.
The older ones have the advantage of having had more time with the parents all by themselves. Our oldest got a whole lot of one-on-one attention (and even two-on-one attention!) in the two years before her sister came along, and we think it made a difference--she was much quicker to learn to speak, to walk, to learn her alphabet, and so forth.
On the other hand, there are some advantages to being younger; you're around more advanced students all the time, and their lessons can seep in. And there are plenty of kids out there who love to read to and explain things to their siblings--and I'm not about to underestimate the value that this has, both to the younger kid and the older one.
(In fact, this is one of the arguments that is made by public school advocates against homeschooling--by taking kids out of the classroom, especially the "smart" ones, it reduces opportunities to have this student-teaching-student activity occur, and thus hurts the educational experience of all the students left behind. I don't particularly buy this argument. For one thing I'm skeptical that much student-teaching-student activity actually happens in a typical classroom; there certainly isn't as much there as goes on in my own home. In part this is because the classrooms are usually age-segregated and often ability-segregated--and I think this reduces the opportunities to have real student-teaching-student activities. But I've had this argument thrown at me, and there is that one little nugget of reality behind it.)
Anyway, excellent observation!
After mulling over this blog for a few days, I posted my comments at http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/arbysarchives/541474/
I didn't want my comment to be longer than your original blog, so I didn't leave it here!
In my world, it's purely genetics. No other explanation!
My youngest is not a fan of reading. At 12, she is reading and her reading has improved tremendously. But reading isn't big on her favorites list. She's more like my husband in that regard. She will read for information. She's a fixer and a doer like my husband. That man knows anything and everything and her mind works like his does so I'm constantly having to revamp school for her!
My 18-yr old has always been a voracious reader which made learning so much easier for her. And homeschooling her was simply easier for me since her mind works the way mine does. We both love to go off on rabbit trails of learning, while my husband and 12-yr old are more the "just the facts" types....
It's all about the DNA! LOL!
I agree with Crossview, DNA. My kids are 16 mos. apart, 15 (girl) & 13 (boy) . We have a strong line of engineers on my husband's side, all with an incredible aptitude for math and spatial thinking. My son wound up with that. My daughter follows my side which is vastly musical and linguistic....and a tad bit warped. The four of us in a room makes for one very interesting conversation! They learn very so differently, so I can't always use the same curriculum...$$$ Ouch. I do combine some things to save my sanity, and I teach to the oldest. It is interesting when you teach them together, how their approaches can be so different, yet they both have really interesting answers and views.
This video is a must see on this topic. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wN7QfjIcVvA
So I'm cheating...I'm just copying and pasting my comment from Arby's post:
My first and second born are night and day when it comes to academics. My first born loves to read and write. Although she prefers Language Arts over math, she's quite good at math. She loves school and spends hours poring over scientific magazines, etc., just soaking up the knowledge. She'll be a "Jeopardy" contestant one day (in fact, she often answers questions even now!)
My second born, on the other hand, prefers any activity to school. Doesn't like reading. And although he's good at it, he would prefer not to do his math. However, the boy can build anything--anything--out of Legos! And he'll spend hours on them. I couldn't even begin to imagine or construct the creations he comes up with. It's amazing.
I think it's a mixture of nurture and nature. Clearly, he has a natural talent for building; all we did was buy him a couple of Lego sets, and the rest he did on his own. I wish I had done more when he was younger to encourage a love for reading. We had 3 kids in 3 1/2 years, so as we added each one, there was less time to just sit and soak up books; there was always a diaper to change, a mouth to feed, a few winks of sleep to attempt to retrieve--you know how it is.
What's funny is my eldest knew the alphabet by 16 months because I sat with her every night while she had a bath, and we reviewed the foam letters. The others? Well, they were lucky if they got a bath, and when they did, I was trying to juggle three other tasks at the same time.
So if I had it to do all over again, I'd say forget the juggling act and spend more intentional time reading. Too bad we don't get do-overs. Oh, well, the boy will be a successful engineer! As for the youngest two, I haven't figured them completely out yet!
After mulling over my comment on Arby's, I do have to add that my 2nd born son (my third child) is just about caught up to my 1st son in reading. Could be one of two things: either genetics in that my 1st son just doesn't have reading in his blood or perhaps once we got a little past all the baby stage (and before we added the 4th), I was able to relax a bit and spend a little more time reading,e tc. Who knows? Just a theory; I do get awfully frustrated with my 1st son's attitude towards reading, though!
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