Benefits of Homeschooling

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Benefits of Home Schooling Jodi Sciola DeVry University Online 6/16/2011 Professor Miller Throughout history, every society has schooled their children at home. The first school system developed in Massachusetts during colonial times, and the primary concern was to teach reading, writing, and basic math. For textbooks, parents used the bible, along with books written by Noah Webster, which is where the dictionary we use today comes from. After the 1870’s, when attending school as we know it today became compulsory, interest in this way of learning waned. As of 2010, there were approximately 3 million children being taught at home, and it appears the population is continuing to grow at a rate of almost 10% a year. Parents always want the best for their children, and as such each know their own children best. In a report released by the Fraser Institute (2007), when asked about the advantages of homeschooling the reasons most parents stated are: • Higher academic performance through one-on-one instruction • The opportunity to develop closer and stronger parent-child relationships • The opportunity for the child to experience high-quality interaction with peers and adults • The opportunity to escape negative peer pressure (e.g., drugs, alcohol, and premarital sex) through controlled and positive peer social interactions • A physically safer environment in which to learn. Although homeschooling was once a rare approach to education,” it has now become a widely known and accepted alternaive to traditional schooling” (Griffith, 1999) because of the many benefits it provides to both its students and their parents. Homeschooling not only benefits the children involved both academically and socially, but it is also beneficial to their parents, as well.
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