What to Avoid When Purchasing a Homeschool Writing Program
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What should you be watching out for?
I attended a homeschool convention in 2019. I shopped all of the homeschool writing programs that were there as vendors.
I saw 5 vendors who sold nothing but complete, meaning K-12, language arts and writing programs.
I would only classify one of these as a quality homeschool writing program.
Yet, they all cost over $100 a year.
I wanted to share with you what I found. I know what to look for when shopping for a program that will grow a child’s writing skills. Some of these I had to ask a lot of questions to finally understand what was truly being sold.
Writing vs. Editing
This is my number one pet peeve.
Many programs seem to define writing as editing. I do not.
I looked at the rubrics.
I compared the rubrics at the beginning of the year to the end of the year.
I compared a third grade rubric to a fifth grade rubric.
They all seemed to be assessing the same skills: spelling, punctuation, and grammar skills, for example, subject/verb agreement, verb tense, vocabulary.
These skills do not help a child grow as a writer.
They help a child find mistakes that technology can now find in their writing.
My question to you: do you want your child to become an expert in finding errors that any tablet or laptop can find?
Or do you want them to learn how to use technology to point these errors out so your child can know what they did and which way would be correct?
Then, do you want that, learning how to use technology to correct mistakes, to be the extent of their writing education, or do you want them to learn how to be really great writers?
If you want your child to actually learn to be a great writer, do not choose a homeschool writing curriculum that teaches editing as its focus.
"How to Choose a Quality Homeschool Writing Program" Get the checklist!
If you want a more detailed description, please check out the presentation.
- 6 steps to prepare you before you look for a writing program
- Questions to ask or look for when shopping for writing programs
- Looking for more? We have a ton of resources for you
Age Appropriate
This is why I wanted you to see what children who are at your child’s level should be capable of doing in the preparation stage. (previous article)
One of the programs I looked at for fifth grade had really good sentences. These were complex sentences with good vocabulary.
The problem was that the student was expected to read the sentence, trace the sentence (busy work), and then write the sentence on their own (more busy work).
I asked the person at the booth, why on earth they had a fifth grader doing this. They said that this was modeling. Yes, modeling is very important. A student should see an example of what is expected of them so they can then do it on their own.
This is not modeling, not for a fifth grader, this is regurgitation.
A fifth grader should be writing a quality paragraph, not working on their sentence structure.
Know what your child should be able to do so (previous article) that the curriculum you choose has a little review mixed with new concepts at the very beginning of the year and then teaches the child new skills and challenges them for the rest of the year.
Fabulous Stories
Great stories seems like a wonderful writing program.
Well, it depends, what is the student being asked to do with the stories?
A really big name in homeschool curriculum had a seamless seeming program with a great workbook and engaging stories.
The problem was that when I looked at what was actually being taught for writing, it was lacking.
The program was mostly a comprehension program. Reading comprehension is an important skill. It is in the language arts category and your child should definitely learn how to read and understand both fiction and non fiction.
However, if the only writing in a program is your child’s responses to a segment of reading or a story, how are they learning to write?
Is your child being taught how to write different types of writing, for example, descriptive, expository, opinion, letters, etc?
This is what you will look for in a program like this.
Glitter
GlitterAll that glitters is not gold!
Do not be swayed by “fun” writing programs.
There is a program I saw that claimed that every piece of writing a child creates is a masterpiece and should be made into some form of artwork.
Parents were flocking to this booth.
It looked so fun!
If you have a creative child, they would love this.
The problem is I asked the questions on the checklist.
I asked how they were teaching my child to write.
I was passed off on to two different people and we never got passed, “how does your program teach my child to write?”
They kept showing me the same thing over and over.
I said, “Yes, I see, this shows capitalization, punctuation, and spelling, but how do you teach my child to write. For example, how do you teach them to form a paragraph? How do you teach them to form topic sentences? You know, actually writing skills.”
They could not answer. They kept showing me their fun portfolios with pictures of mobiles, cereal boxes, and egg carton creations of random students’ “writings.”
Don’t worry, be happy
Don’t worry, be happyThis comes down to your philosophy. I am convinced that learning to write well is a skill. It is not a natural talent that you “just pick up.”
I came across one curriculum that had no rubrics, no sentence structure examples, it did not even teach editing skills.
The people who were promoting this homeschool writing program felt that writing is a natural talent and if you give a child enough time and space, they will be come great on their own.
My advice, run, don’t walk away from this type of program.
Choosing a homeschool writing curriculum is an important decision. Unfortunately, it is really easy to be drawn in by big promises or flashy projects. Take your time and carefully consider your educational philosophy, flexibility, teaching style, and child’s learning style to find the right writing program for your family.