Q: How do you assess progress?
A:
Elementary-aged:
You will use materials for a certain grade, so you will be able to see if your student is doing well or struggling. You won't need a test to tell you in the early years. You will be able to see if they are grasping concepts rather fast, normal, or slow. What matters is that your child will be learning, developing a love for learning, and increasing knowledge at their pace. No need to have everything graded. That said, with math, there will be quizzes and tests, even at a young age. Your curriculum will have them. Use grades as a tool to say, "Hey, no problem, let's see where we need to look a little harder or work through this more. " It's not to do great and feel like a boss, or do poorly and feel like you are a failure. Grades at this young age are a tool to help mom teach and understand her student's needs. The tests are helpful to see what needs work, plus it is a skill to be able to work quickly, which shows proficiency. If your student takes Latin starting in 3rd or 4th grade, there will be grades there also.
Middle:
You won't have to grade a lot of material until this point. It's a ramp up time. Science, history, Latin, logic, literature, English, math... all will likely have graded work. The curriculum will include tests and quizzes. We did live online classes at this point. These are typical classes taught be a teacher with normal grading.
High school:
These are the only grades anyone cares about outside your home. This is because of the transcript you'll want to start building. You want your students prepared for real deal academic evaluations before this time.
A word on academic levels:
We had a student who was technically one year ahead academically. We realized that we didn't want our student graduating a year early and then going to college a year early. So in 4th grade it was really 5th grade material being done... but that was "her" 4th grade level. College turned into taking only 3 yrs to finish instead of 4, so she finished early, which we thought was better than starting early.
A story:
I've seen parents take schooling very casually until HS, then suddenly everyone realized school mattered. Unfortunately, the kids weren't prepared for this. Mom wanted things to be fun and heavily prioritized socializing and friends. For the first time, dad started paying attention, and since he understood the real world, expected high school to be what most of us think of as a full load of academic courses. Not surprising, failure ensued because no one had a plan to gradually increase the pressure and discipline harder academics demand. Learning requires mental lifting. You'll see this with math early on. There are tears, kids think it is too hard... mom has a choice. This is one of the challenges. How much to push. Dad is usually a better judge. Kids work on mom and we tend to back down our buckle, worrying we will ruin them if we push and they can't do it. But no one knows what can be done if they aren't pushed. Mental lifting IS work, and their little brains feel it. Help them push through, have a high standard. You'll be glad later. Crying does not necessarily mean you should back off. It might mean more time is needed, you might need to explain more, but to pull back entirely.... you can be clipping wings and creating a dynamic where the child is suddenly in the driver seat, prematurely.
Standardized testing:
If a person homeschools based on having at least a high school diploma, they have to test their children annually using a standardized test. This score is submitted by either Aug 1st or 15th to the Superintendent of your counties public schools. Kids in government run or private schools do not get tested annually. The test is merely to demonstrate incremental improvement from year to year, there is not a required grade to achieve. That said, year-end testing is not difficult. We did it the last week in May each year.
The California Achievement Test (CAT) tests math and English which is all you have to test for in VA. It can be taken online and graded immediately, or you mail in a paper version and receive the score in the mail. The mother can administer this test. The Iowa is another test and Stanford is another. These others have to be administered by someone besides mom. There are always people offering to administer for a small fee.
If a person home schools under the "religious exemption " they do not have to test annually.
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