Assessing Homeschool Progress
Families often choose home education to get away from strict standards, score based judgments, and one-size fits all models of learning. But we still want to know that our children are in fact moving forward in their skills and knowledge.
The question then becomes: How do I assess my child’s progress without resorting to the methods and measures of traditional schooling?
Remember Your Child is a Whole Being
The first step to assessing your child’s progress is to see your child as more than just their numbers.
Your child is not a letter grade.
Your child is not their test score.
Your child is also not their ability to successfully complete every page of their math curriculum by June 1.
In fact, both letter grades and test scores have been debated in academic circles for some time, and often shown to not be accurate reflections of a child’s actual knowledge or true progress. They are simply external rewards that teach a child to strategically work in a way that ticks the box of the expectations (think studying to pass the test without really absorbing information or completing assignments in the specific format to get the A without a care as to what it means or how it connects to other areas of your life).
So much more makes up the growth of your child than the things that can be neatly quantified, checked off, or measured on paper. If you want to get a true read on how your child is doing you’ll have to pay attention to the whole child, not just what they produce.
Observation + Portfolios
One of the best ways to assess the progress and growth of your child is to simply observe them over time. Watch them as they participate in different things. Are they engaged, and showing signs of learning? Are they putting in good efforts? Are they paying attention? Are they able to do more this year or this month than they were before? Are they maturing in their thought processes, manners, and character? If so, then they are progressing, whether you can quantify it or not.
A great way to observe progress is by keeping a homeschool portfolio, or record, of the work your child does throughout the year. You don’t need to grade or standardize any of it; simply keep it somewhere all together. Then mid-way through the year, or near the end, you can look back through the portfolio and SEE all that your child has done and how they’ve grown along the way.
With portfolios, subjects that require detail and skill, like writing and art, stands out clearly! I remember one year I kept all of my second son’s copy work and freewriting samples and when I looked back over it, the contrast in his penmanship, use of punctuation, and general creativity jumped off of the pages. In the day-to-day, I didn’t realize (and often doubted) the growth because it felt like we were just doing the same old stuff. But when I looked back at the samples over time, his progress was clear and even greater than I expected.
Self-Evaluation + Discussions
One of the best ways I’ve found to gauge progress as a homeschooler is to simply ask my children. Of course, this is assuming that your child is old enough to think through questions and give expressive responses but even children as young as 4 and 5 can state whether or not something is working for them.
Talking with your children and asking for their feedback is an excellent tool for evaluating progress because it gives you insight into their mind life, thought processes, and learning preferences that you cannot get by only tracking what they produce.
Some good questions to ask when you discuss with your child are:
What’s working for you and why?
What isn’t working for you and why?
What do you feel you have improved in recently?
What do you feel you are struggling with?
What goals do you have for yourself in xyz area?
What areas would you like to focus on and why?
What help do you need from me/ How can I better support you?
Having these kinds of discussions regularly (monthly family meetings are a great opportunity!) also help to train your child to evaluate their own efforts and develop more self awareness about their interests, their motivations, and how to express their needs.
Create an Environment that Encourages Application
Another great way of gauging progress is encouraging your child to apply what they’ve learned in some meaningful way.
Maybe this looks like a project that pools together information your child has accumulated in a specific topic. Maybe it looks like your child taking initiative to start a skills-based club with friends. Maybe it looks taking your math lessons outside to finally build those garden beds this year. Maye it’s a homemade experiment that informally tests information in some new and different way.
Putting our knowledge into action, getting creative with it, and teaching it to others, is a wonderful way to see how much we’ve learned and how we are making meaning of our experiences. It begs the question: if the knowledge doesn’t mean anything to us and/ or we aren’t able to practically use it, did we really learn it to begin with?
Remember that Growth is as Individual as Your Child Is
Regardless of how you choose to assess your child’s progress, it’s important to remember that each child is on their own individual learning journey.
Some will absorb information faster than others. Some will need more help and practice. What worked for your first child may not work for the second or third. We cannot expect each of our children to grow and progress in the same exact way.
The best measure of progress and success for your child is the child themselves. It’s not them vs. the world. It’s them vs. themselves. Respecting your child as the unique individual they are will also help you to appreciate and recognize their unique growth.