You are thinking of enrolling your child for an online homeschool program. Great thinking! Online homeschooling, as compared to homeschooling, is a good way to engage your child without having to prepare educational materials or do the teaching all by yourself. However, choosing an online homeschool program can be pretty intimidating, especially when there are so many online schools offering homeschool programs for you to choose from. Should you choose pre-recorded video lessons or have your child attend live online classes? If your child attends an online school, how long will your child be in front of the computer, staring at the screen each day? Is online school really as effective as having lessons in the classroom? Read on to learn about the factors you need to consider when choosing the best online homeschool program.
Allow for Easy Transition to Online Learning
Your child has been studying with a workbook, textbook, and manipulatives in class. Therefore, you may want to introduce the idea of online homeschooling gradually. You may choose to enroll your child in one online homeschool course to begin with. You will probably need to provide a lot of guidance when your child first begin his online classes. Spend time familiarizing yourself and your child with the school online platform. You can also choose to find a homeschool program that lets your child perform tasks associated with the traditional classroom, such as working out sums or completing a piece of writing on paper.
You should also look for an online homeschool program that provides strong support from instructors, as well as from the administrative staff. Find out what kind of support your child and you can receive from the online school. In addition, you should ensure that course materials can be easily retrieved and where possible, do go through them in order to ascertain their quality.
Keep Records of Students’ Learning
If you are new to online homeschooling, be aware that not all programs will present you with physical copies of your child’s transcripts and grades. You should learn about the online school’s grading systems and find out how students’ learning and progress will be tracked. You will need to ensure that after your child finishes his online homeschooling programs, he will have no problem enrolling in college with the documents provided by the online school.
Allow Students to Learn Collaboratively with Others
Children are social beings and they need to have interaction with the people around them to develop holistically. Be sure to find an online homeschool program that offers ample opportunities for interactions to take place among students and teachers. This is even more important if your child loves socializing with his peers. Before you commit your child to a program, find out more about the structure of a program – will there be student collaborations or live presentations of their work? How are students expected to participate in the course?
Monitor Child’s Learning Progress
When children attend online classes, how do you ensure that your child is following the teacher and not deviating from given instructions? How does the teacher check on the child’s learning progress? These are the questions you should find out before you select an online homeschool program. The best online homeschool programs have teachers or advisors who monitor your child’s learning throughout the year. They will frequently reach out to your child, answer his questions, encourage him, and check on your child’s learning pace. Where necessary, they may also customize learning materials for your child to suit his learning ability.
Affordable Online Homeschool Programs
Some online homeschool programs can cost a fortune! However, not all expensive programs are good programs. You will really need to do your own research. The best online homeschool programs comprise the following features: advising, pacing, record-keeping, and printable course materials and guides. If any programs are lacking in these features, you should steer away from them. With so many quality and affordable programs out there, you should not settle for less when choosing an online homeschool program for your child.
At NFC Academy, we are recognized as one of the best online homeschools in the United States. We are an accredited private Christian school for homeschool families and we provide both online and book programs. To find out more about the type of support you can receive from our trained staff, contact us today.