Home schooling is legal in all 50 states. It has grown to include approximately 2-3 million children schooled at home. Home schooling offers great flexibility to parents in teaching their children without necessarily duplicating the classroom setting. Every normal event of a routine day can become a teaching experience for your children. Going to the supermarket, can be a chance to work math into the grocery shopping trip. Parents can take advantage of the cultural and natural resources in their areas. Museums, parks, and local symphonies can all be utilized to create a rich and varied teaching experience for children.

There are a variety of home schooling materials available to aid in structuring the home classroom and providing the basics of course materials. There are also support groups in your area that can help and guide parents that are new to home schooling.

One web site that offers a range of software and home schooling kits is Homeschool.com, http://www.homeschool.com/

They have a great link on their site to locate a local support group in your area. You simply select the Support Group Link and pick your particular state and you will get a listing of the groups in your area. This is a great place to start your research on home schooling. A careful search and comparison of the resources available on the internet will yield many choices for a home-school curriculum.

It is important to check on the regulations for your state. You will want to structure your program to best position your children for testing and college entrance at the end of the home schooling road. A good resource for checking these regulations is the “Home Education Magazine”, http://www.homeedmag.com/lawregs/lawregs.html. This web site for the magazine indicates that as home schooling has become more widely accepted the states are working to reform their educations systems. Therefore, information is constantly changing and the magazine recommends using the links provided to check your states regulations.

The magazine offers overviews of laws and regulations and the opportunity to contact other home schoolers who live in your state.

Studies have shown that home-schooled children do well in standardized tests. In 2002 the average SAT score was 1020, but home-schooled children averaged 72 points higher. In 2004, home-schooled children averaged 22.6 on the ACT college-entrance exam, and public school children averaged 20.9 on the test.

The issue of home-schooled children not interacting enough with their public school peers and the world in general is false. Home-schooled children participate in Girl Scouts, Boy Scouts, church groups, local theatre groups and dance classes to mention a few of the many outside activities that make up a home-schooled child’s day.

Learning does not have to be done in a structured block of time every day in a classroom. With support groups, home-schooling courses and software, parents can guide and share the joy of learning with their children.

By: Sharon M. Sottile