Homeschooling a Gifted Student

Many parents of gifted students choose to homeschool. Homeschooling gifted children has a number of advantages, but perhaps the main one is that ability to accelerate the child at their rate of learning. The rate of learning in a traditional classroom may bore a gifted student and fail to challenge them appropriately. However, in homeschool, once the student understands a concept, they can be moved on to new material and maximize their potential for learning.

Homeschooling in general allows for a more customized educational experience. Children usually favor one way of learning over another. With homeschooling, you are able to choose your child’s homeschool curriculum in a way that caters to their best way of learning. There are hands on projects for kinetic learners, musically inclined reading programs for spatial learners, and much more. Often, gifted kids will strongly favor one way of learning over others.

There is no cookie cutter approach that works with all gifted homeschool students. However, there are multiple homeschooling curriculum programs that cater to gifted or accelerated children. It is recommended to take advantage of all available resources when shopping for teaching materials that meet your child’s needs. Maximize the benefit of your library, search online, read reviews, and look for recommendations from teachers and other parents. The internet has numerous support groups for those who homeschool gifted students, where information is shared about the available tools for teaching various subjects.

In addition, when homeschooling a gifted student, it is important to remember that they do not need to be held to any certain grade level. They should be allowed to skip grades or perform the various subjects at different grade levels according to their skills.

Most importantly, be proactive about homeschooling. The more effort you put into teaching a gifted student, the more they will learn. While homeschooling is still a somewhat controversial topic, it provides an alternative that allows gifted students to excel beyond the limits of a traditional educational setting.