Catching Up

How do I help a fourteen year old at 6th grade level catch up to 9th grade?

Reply to Catching Up:

I am going to assume you are homeschooling (a girl). If your child is in the public school, that would be a very difficult thing to advance 3 grades. Not to say that it won't be difficult as a homeschooler, it will just be a little easier, I feel.

First of all take it slowly. That may sound a little backward considering she's already behind! But you don't want to push so hard as to cause her to stop altogether. I suggest you concentrate on the bare essentials and leave the frills behind.

For instance, make sure to get up-to-speed on math. That would be my first priority. Does she know her multiplication tables? If not, get a set of flash cards and drill her against the clock. We always had "Flash Card Friday". I would flash the cards and time each one. They worked against the clock, not themselves. We also charted their progress. Calculators are a wonderful thing, but understanding the process will help her to solve everyday problems as well. Once she has these down, she'll be confident to move on to a math curriculum. She will need to understand geometry and algebra to get through high school science.

The next subject to concentrate on would be English. You can kill two birds with one stone by having her READ. And I mean a lot. I hope she's an avid reader as she will benefit greatly by reading good literature. It automatically trains you into writing and speaking well.

I guess I would not try to teach the middle grades she somehow missed. So much is review in the beginning of a school year, that hopefully she'll be okay using a curriculum designed for 9th grade. Our high school curriculum was fairly simple.

Stay on track. Maybe work through the summer and hopefully by next fall, she'll be caught up to her peers. All the Best!