You’ve probably noticed that I’ve been scarce around here over the past week.  That’s because I’ve been busy planning our schoolwork for the year.  (Note to self: Next year, schedule posts for school-planning week in advance.)  We use unit studies for the bulk of our curriculum (that’s why the planning takes a big chunk of time), but we use actual programs for phonics and math, because they’re such systematic subjects.

This year we’re trying a couple of new ones – which you’ll be hearing more about later – and as I have mulled over them in my head, I’ve been struck (again) by something I thought I’d point out for the sake of readers who might not have thought about it.

Math and grammar are subjects that we typically teach (in school) for twelve years.  As a result, we tend to think that there is a whole twelve years’ worth of content that needs to be taught.  This is not the case, though!  There are a couple of factors involved.  Most notably, these subjects are developmental in nature.  What I mean is, a student has to be at a particular developmental stage (or beyond) to be able to grasp a certain skill.

As an overly-simplified example, let’s pretend that there are twelve skills, evenly spaced developmentally.  You could teach one new skill each year, starting the first year.  Or you could wait and teach the whole thing in year twelve.

Now, I’m not suggesting we teach everything there is to know in twelfth grade!  I’m simply pointing out that it’s perfectly possible – and reasonable – to teach these things in a condensed fashion, if we simply wait and teach them at an appropriate time.

In a similar vein, we often have difficulty teaching particular individual concepts to certain students, because their brains aren’t quite ready yet.  Did you ever have the experience of struggling and struggling and struggling with a particular math concept, and then suddenly having it just “click”?  While this is occasionally a result of a different teaching method, it’s usually because the brain developed to the necessary point to be able to grasp the concept.

Why is this important?  Well, the “clicking point” is going to be the clicking point regardless of whether you’ve been attempting to teach a thing for a year, six months, six weeks, or not at all before reaching that point.  So if your child is struggling, it is probably better to simply stop.  Just set the thing aside for three months, then try again.  And if it’s still too soon, wait another three months.  When the student is ready, the concept will sink in, and ideally that will happen without his having to get frustrated and  overwhelmed and learn to hate the subject in the process.

If you choose a curriculum designed to be efficient and systematic, you can “catch up,” even if the delay puts you temporarily “behind.”