How Does Online Homeschooling Work?
Posted on February 01 2024
Since the start of the 2019-20 school year, there has been an estimated 30% increase in homeschooled children.
There are a variety of options available for teaching your children from home, including online courses, which can make up the bulk of your child’s schooling or merely be supplemental to in-person lessons and co-ops.
How Homeschooling Works Online
When considering whether or not to homeschool your child, it’s important to understand how online homeschooling works. We’ll get into the benefits of homeschooling in general below, but here are a few things you need to know about online homeschooling in particular.
You Control the Curriculum
This is a benefit of any homeschooling program — you can control the curriculum your child is learning from. They are not limited by the curriculum or course offerings provided by a traditional school, and online courses offer even more opportunities for parents to customize their child’s learning experience.
Online courses can greatly expand the curriculum available to parents. If they do not have co-ops or curricula easily available in their community, online courses make it easy to expand their child’s course options and explore their interests.
Courses are Supplemental, Augmenting the Parents’ Role
One of the biggest benefits of homeschooling is being able to work one-on-one with your child to help them learn. However, some parents want or need extra support with tricky subjects, especially when their child approaches graduation and is taking more challenging courses.
Being able to supplement your knowledge is another benefit of how homeschooling works online. With online courses, you can bring teachers who are subject matter experts right into your home classroom so your child benefits from their instruction, guidance, and expertise.
Transition Fully to Online
While many homeschool parents blend a variety of curricula and modalities to create a custom educational experience for their children, it’s possible to homeschool completely online.
How does online homeschooling work? There are a variety of programs out there that allow parents to enroll their child in an online high school with all the flexibility of a homeschool setting.
Online homeschooling differs from an online public school program because online public school programs are still required to follow the schedule and curriculum laid out by the school district. They do not provide the flexibility in schedules or curricula that many parents look for in homeschool programs. Students could also be subject to state testing, attendance policies, etc. when participating in an online public school program vs. an online homeschool program.
These schools typically form close relationships with students and parents so they can customize the learner’s education plan and curate a course list that helps them meet their graduation requirements, explore their interests, and prepare for life after graduation.
Benefits of Homeschooling
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Flexible Schedules — One of the biggest benefits of homeschooling is the ability to set your schedule. Depending on whether a parent decides to use an at-home curriculum, online courses, or co-op classes, their child won’t be bound by the typical school schedule. Families can design their schedule to offer time and place flexibility so they can complete their education when and where it works best for them. This is a big benefit for families who may be relocated often due to the military, kids who have extracurricular activities during the day, or parents who work atypical schedules but still want to participate in their child’s education.
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Stronger Family Relationships — Homeschooling allows more time for families to be together. Kids aren’t away from home for six or more hours a day when they are homeschooled and therefore have significantly more time with parents and siblings.
- More Parental Involvement — While family bonds will be strengthened naturally by spending more time together, there are a variety of proven benefits to children having their parents actively involved in their education. Research shows that kids have higher academic achievement, better behavior, improved social functioning, and better mental health when their parents are involved in their education compared to kids whose parents don’t participate in their education.
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Customized Learning — As stated before, homeschooling allows parents to heavily customize their child’s educational experience. They can set their schedule, choose the curriculum that works best for their child’s learning style, and even choose at-home, in-person, or online learning, depending on which modality their student works best with.
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One-on-One Attention — Parents can work one-on-one with their children or send them to co-op where they will receive small-group instruction a few times a week from a licensed teacher. Both scenarios result in more personal attention for students, which can make a big difference for students, especially in subjects they struggle with.
- Online Resources and Courses — There are tons of online resources and courses available for parents who want to homeschool their children. Some online programs offer full high school diploma programs, while others provide individual courses that can be used to supplement other curricula. Additionally, there is a wealth of resources available to help parents strengthen their children’s skills so they can master course concepts and be their best.
Homeschool With The American Academy
The American Academy offers both a full high school diploma program as well as individual courses that can be used to supplement your child’s homeschool education.
The full high school diploma program enables your child to complete all of their high school credit requirements 100% online and earn an accredited high school diploma from The American Academy. The program is comprehensive, so parents will have a support team to guide them through using the program for their child’s homeschool curriculum.
Individual courses allow you to choose from our course catalog of more than 100 core and elective courses. This option is great for parents who may want some help in certain subject areas or have the ability to provide a variety of elective options to their child.
If you’re ready to take the next step in your homeschool journey with support from The American Academy, learn more about our online high school options today.
