Stepping Outside the Grade-Level Box ~
Written by Sarah Small of Small World
Ask a homeschooled kid the innocuous “What grade are you in?” and you’ll often get a furrowed brow and an answer with a question mark at the end.
“Fourth?”
This response can be alarming to grandparents, non-homeschooling friends, and the cashier at Walmart. Their raised eyebrows ask, “He doesn’t know what grade he’s in?”
Well, no. Not exactly.
That hallmark of traditional schooling—the passing from grade to grade—isn’t of utmost importance in homeschooling. The age/grade correlation just isn’t necessarily present.
If your nine-year-old is reading at a post-college level, does that make him 23? Who decided, after all, that picture books are for preK-3rd grade, that pre-algebra is done in middle school, and that high school takes four years?
Who came up with all this stuff? I don’t know the answer to that.
What I do know is that homeschooling allows us to provide learning opportunities for our children at their own pace.
Stepping Outside the Grade-Level Box
This might mean that:
- your nine-year-old is reading at a 10th-grade level but has the fine motor skills of a kindergartener;
- or your 13-year-old daughter writes astounding stories but still doesn’t know all her multiplication facts;
- or your son finished high school at 16, but your daughter plans to take a leisurely five years and graduate at 19.
This can be tough for those of us who went through the traditional education system. By nature most homeschooling parents are outside-the-box thinkers, but we still tend to second-guess our choices every now and then, as if some public school administrator is peering over our shoulders and wagging his finger at us.
I balk when I hear parents ask “Where can I find out where my child should be for his grade level?”
The beauty of homeschooling is that it just doesn’t matter. Our kids don’t have to be boxed into a grade.
I remember a story my brother told me once about his daughter, then in first grade in public school. The teacher called him and his wife in for a conference. “I need you to stop teaching her things at home,” she said to them. “She is reading too far ahead and doing math that we don’t learn until the third grade.”
My brother and his wife explained that they weren’t teaching her at home, but that they weren’t going to stop her from figuring things out on her own.
Last year I made the decision to skip over the next math textbook for my son. I compared the two consecutive years and realized that few new concepts were introduced in the 4th grade book. The question for this particular child became: Why spend an entire year doing the same old thing?
We moved into and through the 5th grade book easily, and then I looked at the 6th grade book and saw a whole year of the same old thing, again. But skipping another book would mean going into pre-algebra.
Somehow I couldn’t wrap my brain around my 10-year-old doing pre-algebra already, especially since my 13-year-old just finished the curriculum. But, well, he can. “Move him up,” my husband said simply and sensibly.
My youngest guy likes math. He’s excited about it, figures it out quickly, and is thrilled to be moving on to pre-algebra. On the other hand, he still reverses the letters “b” and “d” every now and then, and he’s never written more than a paragraph on his own.
Is he in seventh grade or second grade? Does it matter?!
Grade levels are necessary for the structure of traditional school, certainly, and they are generally necessary for things like clubs, sports, camps, and church activities.
I think we should all teach our kids a basic grade-level answer (i.e., “I’m in fourth grade”), without feeling the need to explain to the general public that she’s doing 7th grade math, 5th grade science, and reading at a 9th grade level.
But in our own homes, shedding our mental checklist of “what your child should know in each grade” can be liberating—and tremendously beneficial to our kids.
Homeschooling is all about finding the heartbeat of your family and following that pace—not your neighbor’s, not your best homeschooling buddy’s, and not the grade level expectations for your child’s age.
* Bio: With a master’s degree in English/creative writing, Sarah shared her beautiful words on Simple Homeschool for 4 years. Read more of her inspirational words here!
What’s your philosophy on grades? What do your kids say when asked what grades they are in?
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We just had a similar discussion about this in our local hs group. One mom said when someone asks why her kids aren’t in school she sometimes fights the urge to say, “What! Why didn’t you tell me you had school today?” And then grab the kids and run out.
Another mom said she and her kids scratch their heads and say they have lice 🙂
God gave us our sense of humor. Might as well use it 😉
I am homeschool 3 kids. This is actually my 8th year and I still struggle with the grade level thing. My oldest daughter is technically in 8th grade, but she has Aspergers and I just actually talked to her about not doing 9th grade work next year. We use My Father’s World and I made the decision not to put her in the more independent work which had lots of writing and so forth. I just know she would never keep up in the 9th grade level work. She’s still struggling so much with writing and we do Math U See for Math. She’s still in fractions when she *should be* in pre-algebra or higher. Yet, I know I’m doing what is best. I’m going at her pace, not pushing her at all. I had her in special ed at the public school and they just wanted to push her through in math so they didn’t have her master anything. So I had to go back and actually reteach multiplication and division to her before pushing her on to fractions/decimals/percents. It’s been frustrating to say the least, but I am keeping on this very slow path and if she doesn’t graduate at 18, that’s ok. My other daughter is 10 and she is actually doing the same math book as my oldest, so this sometimes is hard for my oldest to accept, but also good in that she tries to stay ahead in the lessons so she can “beat” her sister. They might even graduate at the same time the way they are going. I hope not. That will end badly, I think. My youngest child is an over achiever and when he gets something, he just flies right through it. I chose to skip half the K curriculum because it was way too boring and easy for him. Now we are flying through phonics in 1st grade and I might also have to skip him on to 2nd grade work before I’m finished with this. Again, its too easy. The one reason I like to know where my kids are at with grade levels is by law, I’m required to test them at the end of the year and see where they are at. It does get depressing when you get a piece of paper back stating your child is below percentile for their grade. By law, we are required to get help if that happens, which I’ve done, but we also have to take steps to remedy it once they are diagnosed, like with my daughter. I’ve had her out of therapy now for a year. I just don’t see paying a bunch of money to someone is going to help…so I’m taking a break with therapy for now. She’s actually doing better, but she still has major learning gaps. So I do take the time to gauge where she was, where she is now and see if she’s progressed. If not, maybe I need to think more about the next steps. It helps for me in planning how to proceed. I don’t care really otherwise about grades, but I think its a good thing to see where the gaps are and where you can fill them in better. The public school sure doesn’t do a good job of that, but as a homeschooling mom, I feel I can. Sorry for the long rant. Appreciated your views on this matter as I just found this blog today 🙂
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I am a new homeschooler, and found your blog through a link on “Simple Homeschool” while I was looking over the Day in a Life series. I love, love, love this post and oh, how it resonates with me and my 7 and 9 year olds! Thank you!! I do look forward to visiting here again soon.
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(Sorry, Jamie!! I forgot I was reading this article on your site, not the original one.) Oops.
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Although, this article is several years old, it has made a tremendous difference in how I feel. It made me feel so much better about the direction I’m taking with my son’s curriculum.
Due to his poor performance in his first year at a Common Core school, we’ve decided to homeschool him. He is 10 right now, has Asperger’s, Sensory Processing Disorder, and possibly dyslexia (if he would cooperate with the test). We moved last spring from Texas, a non-common core school, where he excelled in Math, Science, and Social Studies. He has always struggled with Reading and Writing. Well, this past year, with Common Core, he has tanked. Where he could easily do Math in his head, he struggled to do some of the simplest problems on paper due to the method that the school wanted him to do. They barely covered Science, which really deflated his drive. It was all about the convoluted math method and writing/composition.
As I just spent the last four days of mind-numbing research on what curriculum would be best based on our budget and what he needs, I threw my hands up and said, “Forget it! I’m just going to put together a lesson plan and build a curriculum for him!” I used to teach, build lesson plans, and assist with writing courses for the military, I’m pretty sure I can do it for my son.
So, he may be on 3rd grade reading, 8th grade science, and 5th grade math. Who cares! As long as he progresses, learns, and isn’t stressed by being in a classroom setting, it shouldn’t matter.
TL:DR – Sorry for the long post. Thank you for your post it has been extremely helpful.
So glad to hear it! And you’re so right–as long as he progresses,learns, and isn’t stressed out, that’s all that matters!
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A teacher was just suspended at my son’s former school due to cheating on a standardized test, which got me thinking about other ways these time boxes we call grades are harmful. There are no other industries that operate this way. Can you imagine taking your car to the mechanic, who works on it for a day, runs a test at the end of the day, then says, “Well, it still won’t run right, but my time is up. Don’t worry, we will try even harder on our next batch of customers tomorrow.” Working on a concept for as long as a child needs, and no longer, ought to be blindingly obvious.
Great thoughts! When I was homeschooled (in high school) I would tell people I was a freshman, sophomore, etc, according to my age but we did nothing to keep up with “grade level”. Every person is different so why should they all accomplish the same things at the same age?
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loved your article! so refreshing; I so needed the encouragement too since my family just grilled me about our children’s grades for the coming year.
We have a daughter come lately who is 12 and two who are in their 20’s and graduated homeschool awhile back. Now I am experiencing dealing with younger moms because my daughter’s friend’s moms tend to be about 8-10 years younger than me. I’m going to share this article because they are young and inexperienced enough to fret about getting the right grade level curriclium or following the public schools schedule for what to teach when.
It’s rather annoying especially when they look at me like I just stepped off a space ship from the planet Crazy because I suggest doing a unit study or two on a subject their child is interested in to see how they like that. I’d like to point at my two college students on the Dean’s list every semester and say ‘trust me on this’ but most of them won’t let go of the sacred grade level notion.
Oh well, enjoyed the tips. And my kids usually looked at me when asked “What grade are you in?” Sometime I answered with a grade, sometimes I would say we haven’t really been keeping up with that. (Or grading papers, or testing, or rigid scheduling for that matter)
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Our current plan is to transition our children into a private school after we moved back to the US, so I have been using the typical grades when talking about our homeschooling. However, my daughter was upset at the end of kindergarten to be going into 1st grade, because it wasn’t a ‘garden’ anymore. Soooo…we’ll be calling it First Garden this fall 🙂
I’ve often wondered how to reply when people ask me what grade my grandkids are in – I’ve done the math in my head real quick and said, “if they were in public school they’d be in grade . . .” But this article sheds light on the bigger picture of what it means to allow a child to develop at their own pace in individual subjects and puts into perspective the pressure in a more structured school environment to have kids all perform on the same level in all subjects. Helpful for me as a grandparent of homeschooled grandkids. My response in the future will be different.
I’m new at homeschooling my 5 and 8 year olds. I’m still fighting to come out of the grade level boxes. When I first began, I was intrigued by the fact that there was a possibility of my children going to college at a younger age than normal high schoolers would. I’m now stuck. How do I know if they reach middle school or high school level? My state requires that the kids do 180 hours every year…. In that case, is there a certain amount of hours they need to be considered a high schooler? See, I’m still in a box and can’t get pass if I’m giving them all the time they need to finish up or not in the end. Help (smile)!!!
Thanks for this article. I agree that people get way too hung up on grade levels. I pulled my 10th-grade daughter out of public school in December, so we are sticking with that. When it comes to graduation requirements, however, that could change quickly. 🙂
Thank you for this article! I was thinking today about how I don’t like grade levels. I was pondering my son who is 9, but is doing 2nd grade work. It was making me feel bad that he is so far behind. He is progressing and for him and his learning capabilities, he is where he should be for himself. I really do not like this grade level stuff for it puts ideas into my head and then I start feeling like a failure because my son is not at 4th grade level or above. I’m on a hunt to figure out how I can eliminate grade level work for him in the next school year (which for us starts in November this year). Are there any curriculum that just move up levels and not based on grade levels? Like Reading level A, B, C, D or Math level A1, A2, B1, B2, etc. I would love to just eliminate all grades and just move up the ladder in levels rather than focusing on grades. Thanks
I don’t even use a specific curriculum for my children. One s far ahead, the other is three and I’m not sure if she will be ahead or behind. If they were to be behind, as long as they are progressing on their own level at their own pace, none of the rest matters! You keep doing what’s best for your family! Don’t let others put you down! <3
Great article!
From my experience I am looking for options before I have a child as my father was held back by his parents while his teachers desperately warned them to put him in advanced schooling. According to my mother I was reading by age one and writing soon after and took an active interest in math and science early on. In fact my earliest memory around 2-3 was working out “games” problems on the LSAT, because my mother had those tests laying around, and i took an early interest in solving those types of logic problems. My mom did everything she could to help me, but didn’t know what to do other than fake a birth certificate to get me into a higher grade level because the public education system refused to allow a younger member into a higher grade. This did very little since one grade level was not nearly enough to make a difference, and while I was supposed to be in 1st grade, and “illegally” in 2nd, I was still working on 6th grade workbooks in the back of the class, which honestly were STILL too easy for me. Finally my mom learned about the GATE program which back then required an IQ test and actually meant something. Thus, it was actually somewhat effective. I know now that the GATE program is a joke because anyone can get his or her child into the program. As an engineer and attorney, i don’t want to give up my job when my child is ready for school (which will be around 2 at the latest), and my husband plans to keep his job as well. I am thus looking for that perfect homeschool program that allows my children to learn at their own paces while also allowing my husband and I to work (while being flexible in our schedules to pick them up and drive them to other areas when necessary). The likelihood is my children will be done with normal schooling by age 8 or 10 at the latest, and possibly earlier. However I often just read about the benefits of homeschooling from the perspective of being able to work at your own pace. But I know many cultures use homeschooling to expedite the painfully and ridiculously slow process of normal schooling in the United States. I am looking for those people, the ones who use homeschooling to advance their children’s studies and avoid a huge waste of time sitting in the public school system and letting their children decay away during the most impotant time of their development. If anyone who actually fits this profile has advice on homeschooling programs to join I would greatly appreciate it. Thank you.
Sarah, I loved your post! Stepping outside the traditional grade-level box is such an important approach to fostering creativity and personalized learning. It’s refreshing to see how you encourage breaking away from rigid standards to better support each child’s unique needs. What’s one strategy you’ve found most effective in helping students thrive outside the typical grade-level expectations?