While many homeschoolers would be happy making up programs for their homeschoolers, I am a huge fan of the no-brainer. Any thing with a technology bent is a program I want to try out. Schools however jump all over the same types of programs, and often monopolize on the programs I most want to use. This leads to one of the most frustrating problems for homeschoolers. Few things are more aggravating than discovering a great curriculum only to find that it is not available to homeschoolers. I ran into a similar problem with morning.
I read a blog about a program that got me very excited about a program that gets kids to read more. The program, Accelerated Reading, is a program that gives schools the ability to reward reading and reading comprehension. It works by the child reading a book, and then taking a quiz, and then the teacher gets a report on how well the child understood the book. Yippee! I thought. I want it. However, searching the site provided no link for parents, and a phone call to the company provided the information I knew I did not want. It is not available to individuals. This program is licensed to schools only.
This is not the first time I have run into this problem. The Child U program I began homeschooling my children with, turned their backs on homeschoolers and decided to license to schools only. Fortunately, Time4learning, became a school and offered the program back to homeschoolers. Like Time4Learning, it looks like Accelerated Reading did cater to homeschoolers once but decided to cater to “real schools” instead.
Now I am wondering if there is an online school that offers Accelerated Reading back to homeschoolers. Then again, my husband always said I should start my own homeschooling program. Perhaps Accelerated learning will allow me to serve as a school to other homeschoolers and use their reading program. … Or maybe not. It seems that this program has some real literary inadequacies.
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