home school

The Benefit of Home Schooling – 8 Reasons to Educate Your Child at Home

Making the decision to home school is, on the face of it, not an easy one. There are many questions that need to be asked, and answered, before you can take this very significant step in your child’s education. What can influence the decision is an idea of some of the benefit of home schooling.

So here are some things to think of.

  1. Your child will get one to one attention with you. The issues associated with large class sizes will be gone forever.
  2. Noone knows your child better than you, so you can tailor the lessons to suit your child. That will be something that could never happen in a conventional class room.
  3. If your child is someone who is particularly susceptible to peer pressure, then home schooling can alleviate the problem. With your child completely under your control, you not only dictate the curricular activities, but the friends and social elements of their day.
  4. Family life can return to how it should be. No more strangers passing at the breakfast table.
  5. Many children get wrongly labeled with ‘learning difficulties’ when all that they needed was a different approach. If your child falls into this category, you will be best placed to evaluate your child’s needs and requirements.
  6. Scientific studies indicate that home schooled children can come out ahead in every measurement. Other factors may affect this of course, but the indications are that home schooled children achieve more academic success than their traditionally schooled counterparts.
  7. Research also indicates that home schooled children actually have better social skills than traditionally schooled children. This rather flies in the face of most people’s beliefs.
  8. Although not a statistic that should affect your decision making, every child taken out of the state controlled education system actually saves the tax payer around $9000 per pupil per year.

Whilst it is not a task to be undertaken lightly, there are compelling reasons for educating your child at home. It can be argued of course that the benefit of home schooling will not be so strong for all children, but equally, there are many who could benefit significantly from home tutoring.

The article was written by Charlie Cory, who is the owner of Teaching Your Kids. Teaching Your Kids provides advice about home schooling your children.

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Practical Homeschooling Tips – When In Need Of Receiving Home Schooling Tax Credits

Wouldn’t we like to know about the available home schooling tax benefits? Home schooling lessons could turn out to be expensive. Traditional schoolteachers are liable to receive tax credits from federal governments but is it the same case for home schoolteachers? As usual, home schoolteachers it seems do not find the same favor with those making the laws. Let us find out whether home schoolteachers come in the tax credit category.

Teachers are liable to received tax benefits of $200 against federal taxes. That surely is a wonderful law, but only if you are teaching at a private or public school. But here’s where the party ends, parents teaching their own children do not have access to similar benefits of tax credits. The law is clear in this context that you should be working in an accredited school (federal agencies check for either W2 or 1099) and this checks for unpaid, out of classroom supplies pocket expenses budget.

In case you do not have direct employment by a school and you are a home schoolteacher, and as it is in most cases that the school isn’t an accredited one either. Then sorry to say but you come under any such category that qualifies to receive any such tax credits. Do not make any attempts to gain the same thinking you will go scoot free. The IRS is like a police and they know home schoolers are after this thing. It makes for you being caught and then you made to pay the taxes back.

For those people having kids with extra needs then such parents can take tax credits advantages. Those kids having some small leaning problems to not qualify, such tax credits are meant for those kids who have severe problems that make them highly dependent on others for even there basic needs. Children who cannot do without health care assistance, who need specialized caretaker teachers and who have other special needs come in this category.

There are few variations in the tax credits, in case your child suffers from muscular dystrophy, severe autism, downs syndrome or other disabilities like deafness or blindness, then application for tax credit should be granted. This should come, as a relief to most as providing these kids with proper care is a humongous task. Such credits are applicable for medical as well as home school cost as well.

Apart for these credits there are a few more that can be received from the state to a home school. For this you need to verify the tax code of your state before you apply for tax credits. One sure way to qualify for tax credit is by opening a 529 account for your child’s post secondary education or college education.

North Carolina allows you to pay less in 529 contributions till $7500 for the financial year of 2007. Find out if the state you live has some other benefits as well. Credits are for parents as well as grandparents so do check for information. 529 accounts is not limited to just home schools but even grandparents or for that matter anyone having a child can have such an account.

If you look at the broad picture then home schools find it tough to receive tax credits. Of it all very small sum is there to get so be sure to take the guidance of a professional to secure your tax credits.

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Homeschooling High School – Which Curriculum is Right For Your Child?

Now that you have decided to home school your child, you face the daunting task of deciding which high school curriculum you will adopt to enhance your child’s final years of pre-college study. This is a critical task given the competitive nature of college admissions and especially scholarships and grants. And if your child is not going on to college, you need to think about adding some type of a vocational component to your curriculum.

Your decision is not an easy one. There are a variety of curriculum focuses. One website reviewed by this author listed 26! There are: Montessori, religion based, classical, unit studies, Waldorf, Sonlight, and many others. You need to consider also whether you will want secular or religious-based education for your child. Of course, this process can be short circuited by selecting a homeschooling high school which suits your needs.

Once you have worked through the above considerations, you need to decide whether you should acquire your curriculum from a school supplies store or sign up for a school and acquire your school materials from that school. If you choose the first, you will need to make all the decisions as to which textbooks you will use and then order them. If you opt for the latter, then by choosing a particular school you choose the curriculum offered by that school. However, the school will provide you with many more services and resources other than curriculum which presents significant reasons for deciding in favor of a school from which to obtain your curriculum. So how do you decide?

Choosing to follow a religion-based curriculum will narrow your choices considerably and then you need only to choose the school which reflects your religious outlook. Going secular, though, will require several additional steps. You might want to review some of the parents’ forums and read the pros and cons of some of the more popular curriculum. You might also consult with certified teachers and education officials in your area. And of course, you should surf the Internet where you can test drive many of the available curriculum.

Deciding which curriculum is best for your homeschooling high school curriculum is a critical task. This article can help ease the burden of your decision making process.

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