One concern parents have when facing homeschool high school is whether their curriculum choices will adequately prepare their students for college. Like many things about homeschooling, there is no single correct answer for which curriculum a parent should use. The choice largely depends on the nature of their homeschool, the needs of their child, and their goals for their child’s education. I suppose the reason there are so many homeschool curriculum choices is because there are so many different types of homeschoolers!
One of the reasons our family shops at Costco is to avoid being overwhelmed by the number of choices. There is basically one house brand and one size (HUGE.) When we started homeschooling, we felt a bit overwhelmed by the number of curriculum choices available to us as parents.
My strong recommendation is to choose curriculum that is designed for use by homeschoolers. This type of curriculum does not assume a particular level of mastery has been achieved by the teacher. Choosing such curriculum will allow you to learn along with your student (if that is your desire.) A secondary benefit with such a curriculum is that it more easily allows your student to teach themselves. Learning how to educate themselves provides a huge advantage for students homeschooling high school. My two boys tackled and mastered high school calculus and physics virtually without parental supervision. They were given the book, answer key, video tutorial, assignment sheet and were commanded “go forth and learn.”
You may think we shortchanged our kids by not teaching them, but we actually did them a tremendous favor. My boys entered college with a competitive advantage over students who had not learned this critical skill. In fact, my boys were so comfortable being responsible for their education that they had little difficulty stepping up to the additional college expectations.
Choosing the right curriculum for your high school student takes careful planning and much discussion. Make sure you let your son or daughter play an integral role in making their high school curriculum selections. They are the ones who need to live with these choices so it is in your best interest to get them involved. There are no fatal errors when it comes to choosing high school curriculum. That is one of the joys of homeschooling independently – you can always change books in the middle of the term!